Ryan+S+SFLOM

Electricity on Mars

Electricity is caused by positive or negative charges. They are used in order to power things such as robots. There are three main types of electricity; discharge, static, and current. Discharge is when the amount of electricity is out of control, and as a result can explode, but does not always. Current is when the amount of electricity is enough to power in object, but does not explode or have any extra. Static is when the electricity is stood, but if enough is formed, it can become discharge and shock someone.

Electricity could help search for life on Mars, by giving energy to a robot, that could search for you without you having to ever go up in space. It could be useful in creating a camera that can help you see what the robot see's. You could power the robot by a remote control, or let it explore on it's own. But, without electricity, it will have no energy for it to explore for you. Of course if you used a remote control, you would need electricity for both the robot, and the controller, but all of this energy would have to be current, thus you do not want it to explode, or stop working.

Magnetism on Mars

Magnetism is the physical ability to attract or repel in object; this result is from electric charges, that are moving in circular motions. Everything is a little magnetic, but there are only three metals, called the Iron Triad, which include Iron (Fe), Nickel (Ni), and Cobalt (Co) that are noticeably magnetic. Magnetism can result in an object repelling, which can happen when the same poles of a magnet are together; an example of this would be when you levitate a magnet one on top of another. Magnetism can also result in an object attracting, which can happen when the opposite poles of a magnet are together; an example of this would be a compass, which uses a magnet, attracting the north pole of the Earth with the south pole of the magnet (the red area). Finally, another result can be creating electricity, which can happen when a magnet moves in a circular motion; this is kind of like when electricity moves in a circle it becomes a magnet, but vice versa; an example of this could be when a wind turbine is spinning, it takes the kinetic energy from the wind, and uses the magnets (the propellers) to create electricity.

Magnetism can be used on Mars to create electricity for robots or rovers. I know that there are a lot of dust storms, and those can be used to move magnets in a circular motion to produce energy for the rover. You could also, use magnetism for sensors, as there are also many iron pieces on Mars, and this way the rover can know where those iron pieces are. Magnetism on Mars, could also be used to see if there is a north and south pole, thus they could take a compass, and see where the compass points. Unfortunately, you would have to make sure you are not near any iron or else the magnet will just attract the iron, ruining your plan. The rover's could use magnetism as a way to hold different objects such as iron, to build a house, it may be different to build an iron house but it would likely be possible if you used an electromagnet. There are obviously many different ways to use magnetism on Mars and here are a few.

Mission to Mars From Big Bang to Galaxies

The Big Bang was just a small particle that increased in size very quickly! It started off very hot, and went from the size of an atom to the size of the universe. As the temperature decreased, particles started to form such as: matter, anti-matter, protons, neutrons, and anti-protons. When protons and anti-protons, and matter, and anti-matter touch they turn into energy! Fortunately, for us there is more matter than anti-matter, this way we can have objects, and many other things. As the universe continues to expand, electrons begin to orbit the nuclei of atoms with out being torn apart; this would be caused by the heat. After about two billion years galaxies begin to form; they are organized or classed based on their shape. Galaxies were often closer together, and often collided; making the spiral arms grow. This was all based off of a small particle expanding fast; The Big Bang.

The Milky Way Galaxy

Dark patches of space in the sky along galaxies, are giant clouds of dust. If you look at the milky way from the side, it looks like a big line with a disk in the middle. This disk is made up of stars 100 thousand light years away! The sun lies in the disk one end and the center bulge. On the other side of the galaxy there are dwarf galaxies morphing with the milky way! Stars are mainly red and orange; and the nucleus of the galaxy is in the center of the central bulge! What's fascinating, is although we can't see some materials, our galaxy contains ten times more materials than we can actually see! This is true, but our galaxy is about five times bigger than it appears!

Lives of the Stars Stars form in cold dark clouds of dust and gas! A blast from another stars causes clumps that creates holes in the star. Each hole slowly retracts due to gravity; then the new star settles to a period with out much change. Bigger stars form and change much quicker than the small stars! The biggest stars are bluish white; which are approximately forty times bigger than the sun. The color of a star is based off the surface temperature of the star. The sun formed from an interstellar cloud; it then settled as all stars do. It is predicted that the sun will run out of hydrogen pretty soon, it will keep pulsating, until the outer shell is flung off to create a nebula. The core will become a white dwarf star that will eventually fade away! In the core a series of nuclear processes keep it shining; and the it will blow up!

The Sun Sun is a star, or a giant ball of hot gas! The temperature of the core is millions of degrees; and hydrogen nuclei are located in the core of the sun. Energy radiates out of the core, and gas rises to the surface and then falls, as it cools. Some of the gas shoots up like flames, and the most intense bursts of energy can go as far as the Earth! The sun also has it's own magnetic field, and takes a month to spin around. The magnetic field, just spirals around the Earth until it fades away, then a new one forms. Once all of the activity disappears the cycle happens again.

History of the Solar System

Icy planetesmals survive, and the warmer planetesmals were iron. Some of the planetesmals, collided and broke up, while others collided and came together! Four of the planetemals that collided formed planets, and grew disks which some moons came from. On the inside the four inner planets formed, and once they got aligned they didn't collide! Most planetesmals had settled in asteroid belts, became moons, had been destroyed, or moved to the outer solar system. Icy planetesmals became comets when they hit the warmer radiation. Oxygen was from the plants that broke down the carbon dioxide. The dinosaurs became extinct from a comet that hit Earth.

Rocket History

Rocket history has started off very small! The very first rockets were attached to a bow and arrow, to make fire and explosions at religious festivals. The first rockets were made by putting gunpowder in a tube, and would be tossed into fires to create explosions. The Chinese figured out that they could put these tubes on arrows and they would work just from the gases escaping the tubes. They then launched these on attacks from the Mongols, and managed to repel them, with a rain of "ar rows of flying fire". The Mongols then spread this idea throughout Europe and many of these people managed to figure out how to make the rockets better. When an American named Goddard got his hands on one of these rockets, he experimented to make them better. He eventually came to a conclusion that you could use liquid gas to light the rocket and get it to work. He also placed a receiver in the rocket to give it some direction of where it would be going. The liquid gas consisted of liquid-oxygen and an alcohol-water mixture that was placed into the rocket. Eventually the rocket was improved enough that the Soviet Union sent a satellite in to space to orbit Earth, and then a few months later the United States launched one as well, and many different objects and satellites were launched into orbit! Rocket Experiment

The purpose of the experiment was to determine how the rocket would fly when the mass of the rocket was changed. In order to change the mass of the rocket we each painted our rocket different colors, to change the mass. Although there was not a massive difference in the masses, there was a noticeable difference in the height flown. To calculate the height that the rockets flew our class used trigonometry. We used a trundle wheel to calculate 100m and than used an angle gun to measure the height of the rockets. Although there were only about 15 rockets the range of the rockets heights were very different. Many of the rockets went through some trouble-shooting before actually taking off.

The results shown proved my hypothesis wrong and showed the less mass the rocket had the higher the rocket flew. Our rocket as one of the heavier rockets (48.1g) flew up to 36m while one of the rockets that was 44.9g flew up to 100m. In fact in the middle of our launch while in flight blew up and sent our pieces in many directions. Fortunately, we are still able to put it back together. To conclude, the rockets with less mass, flew higher than the rockets with more mass. Our rocket flew perfectly up until, a fin fell off, and the parachute blew up along with many other pieces of the rocket. The parachute came out, and detached from the inside of the rocket. When the rocket came down, the only thing that slowed it down was the little air resistance that was helping it there. Overall, our rocket was a failure. The rocket did not fly very high at all, and had many defects while in the air. Next time, hopefully the rocket will be a little bit less of a failure.

Mars Rover Drop Our egg drop went well, because our design flew a little longer than others. I think that the egg could have been housed a little bit better too. The fact that the egg cracked was obviously not good, and was not housed very well. I think next time it will need to have a softer and less sudden hit, thus we probably need a better parachute. We could use a parachute out of paper, string, and maybe bubble wrap in case it doesn't come out. I think we could use more bubble wrap and string, in order to create a parachute. Our first drop vehicle, had the egg held in a cup, covered completely by bubble wrap, with a bag blown up, and balloons attached to the bag, to slow down the drop, and create a smaller impact.



Robot History

The history of robots goes back even to Greek and Roman mythology. People started to use them to create machines and fight in warfare. Their are some myths where a few demigods create a giant dragon that actually works! As far as history can tell though, the first robot's were created for use in industries. These would be used to do simple tasks, and for people and increasing production. These day's people use them for that reason, they are also use them in toys and such to entertain kids, for example a toy called Fur-real Friends, can react to the users touch, and purr or have other reactions.

A robot is a machine that can sense the world, analyze the situation, and can react based on the programming given to the robot. The first robots were created in the 1950's by a man named George C. Devol who named his the Unimite; named after the Universal Automation. The first robot's were very unstable and wobbly, and some robots were named based off of that. A more advanced robot is currently being used on mars to explore the surface and to find any sign of life that might be there! As you can see robotics has gone along way over the years, from wobbling everywhere to roaming Mars.



Programming Robots

Programming robots is much easier said than done! It can be done fairly easily, but with some thought going into it. The robot’s we have been using have been fairly simple and can do many things, with the right program! You can make the robot do specific turns, such as a point turn or curve turn (right or left), make it reverse, or drive forward; and it can even make sounds or provide visual images. The program Mindstorms, the program we have been using is fun to play with and mess around with. The motor and computer attached are very easy to manipulate; as I said, it can basically move in every direction. Although it can move and all that, you can also attach sensors to the motor so that it can sense light, things in front of it, and even sound. All of which are completely compatible with the program Mindstorms. The cool thing about Mindstorms is that you can have up to 99 different commands for the robot and it can eventually get them done. The sensors for these robots are very cool, because although they are robots, they are not high tech or anything, and can be attached by legos. So far, my partner and I have put on an ultrasonic sensor, a sound sensor, and are currently putting on a light sensor. We have been able to program all of which, to be able to avoid running into things, sense sound and stop or move forward again, and turn. Some of the time I have trouble remembering how to program the robot though, and have to go back to the tutorials while my partner just puts the program on the robot. My favorite part of the whole project though is seeing if the robot can actually complete the challenges, that were given to us. Overall, this project is really fun, challenging, and interesting; as there are many enjoyable things about any robot. Geology on Mars

There are many ways to identify minerals, that include, doing a hardness test, magnetic test, streak test, a fluorescent test, and an acid test. A hardness test, experiments to see how hard a mineral is, by scratching the mineral with different objects. The hardest mineral is a diamond, basically can't be scratched. You can also conduct a streak test which has the mineral scratch against two different streak plates; a black and a white streak plate. The fluorescent test is when you place a UV light on the mineral, and some minerals will glow a different light, that is different to that mineral, although not all minerals can glow different colors so you would have to likely conduct another test. The magnetic test simply tests if the mineral is magnetic, as there are very few magnetic minerals this would not be a great test to do. The final test is an acid test which is conducted by placing hydrochloric acid on the mineral, to find out if it is a carbonate compound. If the mineral begins to bubble up, it is likely a carbonate compound. There is currently a rover on Mars called: Curiosity. It has been there roaming the planet for over a year! There are many tests that are being done, to see if there is life on Mars, if we can colonize Mars, and if there are proper materials to go to Mars now. Curiosity is currently doing many of the mineral tests that have been shared! It will do a test on basically anything it can get it's wheels over! Curiosity first starts by picking up a rock/mineral/dirt, and than does the many tests to see if the object obtained is a mineral or rock that is here on Earth that can be identified. It can than send back results to the scientists who can figure out if this shows any sign of water or life on Mars. This process is happening right now, and will continue to happen, until we know that Mars is safe.