Digital Analyzer

Hey guys,

Please go look at this site and let me know what you think? I am waiting for an email response from their sales people.

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/202100

Digital Analyzer

I spoke with Iotech, and their package for a digital analyzer will cost around 10k.
I am going to explore another option with NI. Their package appears to be cheaper.

Proposal Accepted!

Hey guys. We just found out that the proposal was accepted. You can check out ours and all the others that were accepted on this site:

http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/news/activeteams.cfm

According to the website, the flight week we are scheduled for is Flight Week 2: June 5-14, 2008. It's not as soon as we would have liked but at least it's not well into the summer. Hopefully, this can fit into everyone's graduation->work plans. We'll have to discuss the implications of our flight being after graduation with Dr. Zhou.

Have a great weekend.

#3 X-Planes

3. In terms of choosing a drive train to hover above the ground, the two companies choose completely different designs. Give some pros and cons of the two approaches. If you are the chief designer, which design would you choose and why?
Boeing choice to use the more conventional and proven method in the directional exhaust system. Since this system is already in use with the Marine Corps Harrier, it is known how this system will perform and what to expect. With the use of this system, the pilots will already have knowledge of how it works and how to control it effectively. The good thing about this system is that it has a limit number of moving parts involved, in which reduces the chances of a mechanical failure. One problem that is known about this system is that it has a tendency to ingest some of the directional exhaust into the engine causing a stall, and ultimately it could cause a crash. The team of Boeing experienced a slight stall when in testing but the crash was avoided.
Lockheed Martin went out of the box on their choice of a hovering drive train. They decided to implement a lift fan in the center of the aircraft while also using the directional exhaust. This approach is rather radical in the since that it had never been tried and the possibilities of a failure is high. The interesting thing about this system is that the airplane proved to be more stable during vertical landing due to the fact that the aircraft had two columns of air for support instead of just one. The lift fan proved to be much more powerful than the method that Boeing chose to implement, thus making the aircraft more adaptable. While in testing the Lockheed team discovered that the lift fan provided a “breath of fresh air” to the situation. This means that the lift fan directs fresh air from the top of the plane towards the ground creating an invisible shield protecting the engines from ingesting any of the exhaust air and causing a stall. The one downfall to this design is the large amount of mechanical moving parts involved. It makes since to minimize the amount of moving parts in an assembly in order to reduce the possibilities of failure, but Lockheed Martin did exactly the opposite and it paid off.
If it were up to me, I would choose to use Lockheed Martins drive train. Mainly because it has a lot more power, more stable, and it reduces the chances of an engine stall. The team of Lockheed Martin showed that they are willing to take risks and be truly innovative in their design, and it is because of this that I believe they received the contract. Although this system has more mechanically moving parts, I would suggest implementing a routine inspection of the aircraft to ensure the proper function of the hover drive train.

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Hey guys,
I just wanted an update on what Dr. Jordan had to say about the proposal and what I can do at this point to help get the final draft ready.

Outreach Opportunity

I talked to Katrina Brent about getting some letters from a couple of schools to verify their interest in our outreach ideas. She is also planning on writing a letter to state that she will act as liaison between our team and the schools. This will add strength to our proposal if we can get them.

Also, she sent me an email about an activity on campus that we can participate in:

"Would your group be available to speak with about 40-50 students from Lumberton High School about your project on Monday, December 3rd? Lumberton High School’s Science class will be visiting our campus and the College of Engineering on this day and I thought it would be a great opportunity for you and your group to speak with these students and teacher about your project. It would probably be in the morning sometime."

We should check our schedules to see when we would be available.

Proposal Advice

This is something I read on the micro website right now that I thought we should all keep in mind. Clearly I don't think it is anything we will have to worry about but I figured posting this wouldn't hurt.

USING OLD PROPOSALS-be very careful
Please do not use any text from older proposals. Even if you wrote a section for last year's proposal and have been assigned to write it again this year, please resist the temptation to include last year's work in this year's proposal. If your ideas are basically the same, find another way to present them. The best advice is to start from scratch - you'll be a lot safer. Copying from a previous proposal, for purposes of this program, is called plagiarism. We don't want you to get caught in that trap. Please be careful. If you feel you must include a small amount of previous text, cite it properly.
Why are we so strict about this?
Because this is an educational program, and each team should submit original work.

Accelerometer Update

Today I got one 3D axis accelerometer from Dr. Irwin. I also got an ULI interface to go with the accelerometer. On Monday I will go and get the software that ties it all together. Hopefully Dr. Irwin will be able to find one of the missing accelerometers so that we will have two available. We hooked the equipment up to a laptop in his lab that has the software on it and I believe that this set-up will suit our needs.

Today I got a Measurements Lab key from David. I have stored the above equipment in the Lab and I suggest we store all addtional equipment in the lab. There are several stipulations for having the key, but we can use the lab to work on the project if necessary. A minimum of 2 people have to be present for work to be done.

Outreach Update

Doug Goforth replied back that everything sounded good. He gave only two stipulations:

The student's experiment would have to be present and attached on the Monday of the TRR (Test Readiness Review).
Also, due to the TRR taking place only once as well as badging issues, we will need to limit it to one team (3 students + 1 teacher).

I will type something up this weekend so we can bring it to Katrina next week.

Accelerometer Options

After meeting with David, I realized the ME's accelerometer equipment is not suitable for our portable arrangement. However, it appears that the SS's accelerometer equipment may work just fine for our experiment. I hope to meet with Dr. Jordan in the coming week and inspect the equipment they have. On another note, the ME dept does not appear to have any motors which would easily suit out needs.

Outreach Plan

I emailed Doug Goforth at NASA to discuss some of the concerns he had about our outreach plan. I will post his reply when I receive it, but here is what we're looking at right now:

We are now planning to set up a competition among area schools to fly a small, automated experiment along with ours. We will have to take measures to ensure the safety of their design (we will likely require that it be self-contained, within a certain weight limit, etc.). We plan to have only 1 ground crew member (Gary), so we can allow 3-student teams plus a teacher, which is within the 5-member GC limit. This will be a little more meaningful than just a random drawing after our presentations.

They may only need to be there on one flight day. Travel arrangements can be made with Lamar to use a school van to bring them to Ellington that day. The students will be responsible for designing, building, transporting, and possibly loading their experiment. We should be able to easily create a slot/space within the framework of our own experiment into which theirs can fit.

One question I had for Doug Goforth is if we could allow two separate HS teams (one for each flight day) to participate? There wouldn't be more than 5 GC members at one time, but this would allow more students to be involved. I'm not sure if having two teams is wise, due to the time involved in making sure their design is safe, etc., but I just wanted to know if this was an option. I also asked if they would be required to attend the first day or if they could just come for the one flight day?

I feel that this is a viable outreach program, and aside from a few administrative concerns, Doug Goforth seemed to think it was workable. Since we are so close to Houston, travel is not an issue. This would also introduce high school students to the RGSFOP and the design/proposal process, which will hopefully encourage them to participate at the college level.

One question for the high school teachers is if this could fit well with the high school curriculum, especially in the AP and advanced science courses?

Let me know if you have any ideas or concerns.

Window Box Planters

We have two choices for the box planters that are readily available at Home Depot/Lowes:

1. 24" L x 5.5" H x (7.5"/4.5" tapered) W
2. 30" L x 5.5" H x (7.5"/4.5" tapered) W

Around the outside is a slight lip (~.5") where the edges are curled under.

Given the plant spacing (5 cm apart) we can fit 36 plants in the smaller one and 45 plants in the larger one. The disadvantage to using the larger one is that it seems rather long, and may be problematic when transferring during the flight. I feel like the 24" would be best. Dr. Zhou's idea earlier was to plant them in pots in 3 x 3 rows, and use 3 or 4 pots at a time. This setup would yield 36 plants at a time, so the 24" planter would accomplish this. If Dr. Zhou feels we need more plants, we can just strap on a second planter or use the 30".

The price for the 24" planter was $6.23 ea, and for the 36" planter was $6.73 ea.

Let me know if you see problems with this, or have any other ideas that would work better.

Vibration (Shaker) Table Design Website

Came across this today, looks like we might use some of the ideas from this for our vibration table.

Shaker Table

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Proposal Responsibilities

I. Technical

• Jordan
• Corey

II. Experiment Description/Safety Evaluation

• Jonathan
• Gary

III. Outreach Plan/IV. Administrative

• Tiffany

Linear Actuators

I found a couple of different actuators that will work for our applications. I have the PDF files on my flashdrive if anyone wants a copy. I also sent in a qoute request form to the company so we can get an idea on the cost. I will continue to look for more products that will work.

Accelerometer Info

The good news is that the ME department does have 2 accelerometers. After checking the spec sheets these seem as if they will be acceptable for our experiement, but not optimal. Hopefully we will be able to find an accelerometer with a lower frequency range. Maybe Dr. Jordan's accelerometers can serve this purpose.
I will set up a 'small' experiement to determine if these accelerometers will meet our purposes for the 'big' experiment. This will need to be conducted this semester. I do not believe that our 'small' experiment will require the use of the actuator.
David will be able to install LabView on a personal laptop (Tiffany's), but he has to remove it after our experiment is complete.

Gantt Chart

Project Schedule

Milestone Dates:

9/19 - Letter of interest
9/24 - Decide spliting of proposal
10/12 - Complete design draft
10/17 - Mid-Term design review
10/31 - NASA proposal due
11/26 - Final report draft due
12/3 - Final report and presentation due


Key Tasks:

1. Determine method of measuring damping effect - Jordan
· Research Lamar’s current technology availability
· Research all current technology
· Test Lamar’s available technology and see if it’s applicable

2. Vibration assembly - Corey
· Linear motor
· Vibration table, including rails and bearings
· Response measuring equipment
· Electrical/wiring

3. Frame - Jonathan
· Size of frame
· Determine frame material
· Weight and cost analysis
· Safety requirements
· Structural integrity analysis

4. Wheat - Tiffany
· Research growing requirements and timescale
· Determine potting set up and planting pattern
· Determine containment/attachment for RGSFOP experiments
· Plant/grow wheat and rice

5. Logistics - Gary
· Determine overall experiment containment (i.e. Lexan)
· Determine controls for experiment
· Determine microgravity experiment procedure (actions for each parabola)

Outreach

Jonathan came up with a pretty good idea for the outreach portion of the proposal/project. We've been tossing ideas around about the specifics and wanted to get everyone's input. The idea is to visit area schools, do a presentation about NASA and the microgravity program. After the presentation, we will somehow choose a select number of students and teachers to accompany us as "ground crew" for one of the flight days.

We're going to email Doug Goforth who is over the RGSFOP to make sure this is okay, and to get an idea of how many people we can take. We discussed this idea with Dr. Jordan and he seemed to think it was feasible and a new idea, which NASA will hopefully like.

Some ideas we were considering is to make a short trivia-type quiz on space science, NASA, and the microgravity program that the students can take after the presentation. The top scores from each school can be thrown into a "hat" and a certain number chosen at random. We could even break down the schools into areas like Orange: LCM, WOS, Orangefield, etc; Midcounty: PNG, Nederland, etc.; Beaumont: West Brook... you get the idea. We can do separate drawings from each of the areas so we can get a good representation of the whole SETX area.

These are just some thoughts. Does anyone have any suggestions or other ideas for outreach?

Microgravity Information

This link will take you to the microgravity website. They have info on the deadlines, prior campains, information on the proposal, etc.

http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/

Thoughts on Validation of the Necessity of Zero-G

Hi guys,
I'm going to give this a shot.
First of all, I am assuming that the plane is pressurized throughout.
We know/assume that in a 1-G environment that wheat(flexible structures) will provide damping to a system. I am assuming that this occurs in two ways:
-air resistance (higher the pressure/humidity the bigger the effect)
-the flexing of the stalk (this flexing absorbs energy from the system)
What effect does gravity play on this damping mechanism?
Will the damping be more or less profound (or neither) in a approximately Zero-G environment?
I am assuming that a crop aboard a space vehicle would eliminate certain frequencies of vibrations, and therefore, enhance reliability. Allowing this experiment to run in a microgravity setting would allow these assumptions to be proven True, or False.
Just a few ideas on the way home from work, feel free to argue or support these ideas.
Jla

Course Assignments Schedule

Week 2 – Sept. 5
Project Abstract

Week 3 – Sept. 12
Product design specification
(including customer needs and engineering specification)

Week 4 – Sept. 19
Gantt chart and team schedule

Week 5 – Sept. 26
Design proposal - not necessary?
NASA proposal due Oct. 31

Week 8 – Oct. 17
Midterm design review (Formal oral presentation )

Week 10 – Nov. 5
Mechanical Design Project – Drive Mechanism
(Formal oral presentation )

Week 15 – Nov. 26
Final report draft

Week 16 – Dec. 3
Final report and final presentation