Glider Challenge

Challenge: To create a glider plane that stays in the air and glides for a long time.


Brainstorm solutions:

Brainstorm 1:

Brainstorm 2:

Criteria:


Constraints:
- Certain amount of blue paper
- Can't be too heavy




Test Phase




















From the test flight, I've learned that our plane nose dives too much. It doesn't have much hang time.

My goals for the glider
- Get it to hang in the air for 5 seconds or more
- Be able to soar longer without nosediving


Our glider didn't do so well. It nosedived as we predicted and it didn't have the best hang time. It was hard to change our glider since we already constructed it and took some of it apart.

I would change our design. I would add another set of wings and slant them upward instead of slanting them parallel. That way, there would be more of a change to hang in the air longer and soar.

"Egg Drop Challenge - Iteration #1"

Total # of achievements:

Achievements:

Brainstorm:

Materials:

- Cardboard box

- Newspaper

Material size:

- My materials fit inside a cardboard box

Material weight:

- Weights more than 600 g

Drop Achievements:

I hit the bullseye

Egg Resiliance:

- My egg cracked but the yolk remained intact

- My egg cracked but was still together

Actual design:

Since I didn't have enough time to brainstorm, I picked the easiest & most cheapest way. I got a box from home and lightly stuffed it with newspapers, making sure that each newspaper wasn't tightly crumpled. Unfortunately it didn't work.

The designs that were the best had mostly styrophone or popcorn and parachutes. If I could redo my design, I would put my egg wrapped in cotton balls in styrophone with a parachute on top.

Robopro Marble Sorter

Brainstorming ideas:

Decision Matrix:

Final Decision Solution:

The marble wouold travel down and get sorted on the track by either colored marble or wooden/metallic. Then each marble would get subsorded according to either color for the glass marbles or metallic/non-metallic for the wooden and metal marbles.

Design Modifications:

We got rid of the track for the marble to go on since the marbles kept falling off. And we added a wheel so the marble could be rotated into the correct bin.

Final Design:

One marble would get pushed down one at a time. If the marble was small, it would go straight down. If not, then it would roll to the right until it hits the light sensor. The small marbles would get sorted by either metallic or wooden by the magnet. The wooden marbles would roll right through into their associated bin and the metallic marbles would catch onto the magnet, waiting to get pushed by the motor. When the bigger colored marbles travel over to the light sensor, it detects its light sensitivity, releasing the gate to send the associated number with the color and put it in it's correct bin.

Reflection: We accomplished our objectives very well. When we tried making a track for the marble to roll on and then get dropped in the bin, it wasn't working because the marble kept rolling off of it before it was to get pushed inside the correct bin. Our final results were a lot better than what we came up with before. The wheel allowed each marble to fall into the correct bin without falling out. And our magnet allowed us to detect the metallic marbles apart from the wooden marble. We couldn't get the starting motor to work so

RoboPro Design 2

RoboPro Design

Flowchart (Activity 3.1.2)

Flowchart:

Conclusion Questions

How is flowcharting similar to using a map to plan a route for a trip?
1. Flowcharting is similar to using a map to plan a route for a trip beause both are readable, easy to use, and give step-by-step directions/instructions on what to do (i.e. a simple task or driving to Vegas).


Describe a process that you perform every day. Develope a flowchart that illustrates a process.
2. Everyday process: getting up in the morning. First you have to get up. Then you have to brush your teeth and wash your face. Then you have to shower. Then you either eat breakfast or you don't. If you do, you have to go back and brush your teeth, then go to school. If you don't then you go to schoool.

3.1.7 Machine Control Design

1. Requirements: to design a vehicle that drives in a strait line back and forth to deliver batches of parts. Must travel back and forth based on input from a potentiometer. Must include an emergency shutoff in case the vehicle travels too far in either direction.

Components: Engineering kit tools and pieces

Constraints: must travel back and forth (2 ways); must have an emergency shutoff

2&3. Solutions/Sketches:

4. Final design:

5. Actual Design

Conclusion Questions

1. The most difficult part of the problem was trying to set up the car and the system that moves it. We had trouble getting the car to break on the emergency stops. Instead of stopping on cue, it would keep going and eventually get off the track.

2. Our design worked great, so I don't think there's anything more or less that we would have needed.

Super Advertising

In orfer for the VW company not to go bankrupt, they would need to sell about 200 cars. It cost VW $3 million to make/air the commercial. 98.7 million people saw the Superbowl. I think it's smart to show your ad during the superbowl commercial. Although not all 98.7 million will buy your product, a lot of those millions of people will think about getting a VW now. In order for the company to not go bankrupt, they at least need to make the $3 million they spent on the commercial and air time, so they'd need to at least sell 150 cars.

Activity 3.1.1 Inputs and Outputs

5. Unchecked; zero; not present
6. Checked; one; present
7. When you switch 3 and 2, the answers to #5 and 6 switch
9. 38 to 5000
11. 1718
12. 1655
14. By switching the red and black wires
15. The electromagnet turns the reed switch on
16. Normally closed
18. Light shining = closed photoresistor
19. More light = more resistance
20. Reverse program
21. Having the phototransistor normal will make it utilized

Basic Metric Units

distance: m
time: s
mass: kg
area: m ^2

velocity: m/s
density: kg m^-3
gravity: m/s^2
force: kgM/s^2
energy: kgM^2/s^2
power: kgM^2/s^3

Content is King

I have a passion for gymnastics.

http://gymnasticscoaching.com/new/category/blogs/ is a blogging site for gymnastic lovers. On this site, there's events, some other gymnasts you can follow, and other interesting things.

I don't see myself blogging about gymnastics, since I'm not as good as other gymnasts. I could see myself blog about juggling or how to save money or invest properly. I'm pretty good/knowledgable on these areas, and they interest me a lot.

Tennis Ball Team Building Game

Challenge: to pass the tennis ball as fast as we could to each teammate.

Constraints: time, the more people in your group, the worse your time will be, having little time to colaberate.

Our plan: we had the ball falling downward, so we passed it going down by catching the ball and then dropping it into the next person's hands.

Our plan worked out well. We finished fast.

I don't know if I would have changed our plan. Maybe putting all our hands in a small circle and passing it quickly to the next person, or even rolling it on each person's hand until we all touch it.

When each teammante couldn't just touch the tennis ball (we actually had to pass it), that new constraint kind of hurt us.

Lots of people were colaberating and sharing their ideas. Most of us agreed to keep the ball as close to all of us as possible and pass it around quickly. Others suggested to form our hands/arms into a ramp-like form and pass it while the ball fell down. All of these ideas helped formed our team plan.

In order for anonther game to be fun, I would suggest that we won't have to pass the ball; we could each touch it and that would count as a pass instead. And each team needs the same # of teammates. It would also help if we had more time to colaberate and construct ideas.

We won the first try but lost the second.

Survival at Sea Game

Intro: To test what we thought was most important for surviving at sea ranking a list of 15 items from most important to least important.


Personal prioritization:
Top 2 items: (1) 25 liter container of water. Without water, we would die.
(2) A case of army rations. Even though we can survive longer without food than without water, we will still die without the basic necessity of food and energy.

Bottom 2 items: (1) Maps of the Pacific Ocean. There's no need for these maps since we're stranded in the Atlantic Ocean. Plus, maps are hard to read.
(2) A quantity of mosquito netting. There are no mosquitos in the middle of the ocean. And it would be hard to catch fish in it as well, so it's practically pointless.

I though the sextant was hard to list cause you might be able to use it if you knew how to, but I wasn't sure. Does shark repellent really exist?

Team Prioritization
We all ranked the 25 liter can of water the same, since water is important for survival. I ranked the shaving mirror closer to the bottom because I didn't see the need for it other than shaving, which I don't need to shave my face and there's no razer included with my items. I now see how crucial it is for signaling for survival. We all worked by comaring the most necessary items together and the least necessary items. From there, we thought out each item and how important and functional it would be for us.

Expert Prioritzation
I thought the water and food would have come first on the Coastguard's ranking, but the water ranks 3 and the food ranks 4. The hardest part of this challenge was figuring out all the uses an item could be used for. You would think that the only thing you could use the rum for was to drink, but with creative thinking, you could use that rum to disinfect any wounds you would get while stranded. I put more weight into both expert opinion and experiential data. The experts assume that everyone knows how to eat food, drink water, use a shaving mirror, but you may be able to know how to use a sextant with prior knowlege, so that wouldn't be a useless item. If you can send morse code with a small transistor radio, then that wouldn't be as useless as the Coastguards claim.