Star Gazing

As a requirement of SES course, we need to go to school to investigate about stars and moon using telescopes on September 27, 2012. Our teacher, Mr.Chung invited a few awesome astronomers to school and help us to actually see the planets and moon. There were around five telescopes set up for our class to enjoy. Most of them were focusing on the moon. And with the telescopes that night we were able to see the craters on moon!

We also took many pictures of the night sky, especially the moon, because it is the brightest and clearest object we can see. It is really amazing and interesting to actually use telescopes to observe the moon and the night sky. 

According to astronomers, the telescopes had GPS embedded in them which allowed pinpointing of their position on the globe which helps in adjusting the reference planes and maps of the sky according to these coordinates. Also, one of the astronomers was explaining the story of Andromeda to me while he had a powerful laser that could trace each constellation for me to see, after that he gave me his tumblr so I could read up on his articles!

This really was an amazing and memorable night to me!

Hot Balloon 2

This time, our whole class failed again as none of them succeed to fly in the air. So our teacher again ordered students into new groups. My new group came up with a new idea and design. We used a really light plastic bag and four small birthday candles to make the hot balloon. We used a small paper to hold candles as the base, and connected bags with base using strings. 

However, we still failed, as we expected... Because we didn't have time to make the bag and base a close system, which means that we won't have enough hot air in the bag to make it fly.But none of the group succeed, so... whatever.
But this is actually an amazing experience, and personally, I really enjoyed it.

Hot Balloon

Now we are making a hot balloon with the same group members from the second egg lander. we had straws , a few birthday candles and a large bag as the material. In this mission we must make a hot balloon and make it fly up for a certian amount time and height.
We spent lots of time to take to tapes off fromm the egg lander, we used those straws to make the design Mr. Chung drew on the board. It is a simple and useful design for hot balloon. We spent lots of times deciding how many candles we should use for the hot balloon and the length of the straws. Because the bag was really big and heavy, so we cut it and use one part of it. Therefore, the number of canldes we used was only 4.To prevent the candles burn the bag, we made a long base and put all candles at the center of the hot balloon. We used tapes to secure straws with bag and the candles on the straws. And this is our final product.

Isn't this amazing? LOL! Anyways, this didn't work. In fact, none of our hot balloons worked in our class. When the candles were lighted, the bag intumesced but did not rise from the ground. I think the bag is too small and there was not enough hot air to carry up such weight of candles and straws, and maybe we did not use enough candles.

For Adjustion, I will use larger and lighter bag, and maybe more candles.

Egg Lander 2

Because all groups failed the first egg lander, so Mr. Chung asked us to build it for the send time with the experience learnt. This time we got 25 straws, tapes but no newspapers. Our new group members shared our experience from previous egg lander and tried to improve it. Our group first decided to build a structure that has straws sticking out from the encasing so that the shocked was absorbed. However, this idea was then denied because some groups did this and then failed. Then we realized that a ball structure would be better to absorb shocks than other shapes as it is symmetrical. Eventually we decided to make a egg lander based on a soccer ball shape with a triangular pyramid shape inside t hold the egg. The ball shape is for absorbing the shock and the triangular pyramid shape inside the egg lander would secure the egg. We also left a little space with the pyramid shape to allow the egg move inside it, so the shock won't be transferred to the egg and egg won't be crashed. But one problem is that ball-shape structure need so many tapes to hold it together and make it stable, so we used too many tapes than we allow to...

Actually, everyone in our class thought our egg lander was going to work, including our teacher, Mr. Chung. Unfortunately, our egg was broken. This is because the egg lander was first landed on the tree branches, and then it was bounced off to the ground, which means that the egg lander got the shock much more than the shock it should be got. Also, one side of the triangular pyramid shape which is used to hold the egg lander was break away, the egg came out and crashed onto the ground.

And This Is My Awesome Group Members!

Egg Lander

Egg lander

As one of the tasks in the course of space science, we were asked to make an egg Lander that will keep the egg safe when falling from the second story. The
materials we could use were twenty straws and a piece of newspaper.

Design

Our group came up with a model that looked like an accordion with four legs on each side. Our concept for designing model was that the legs would support the egg from hitting the ground and the accordion as well as the legs would absorb and transfer some of the impact due to the gravity forces. We first stuck two bent straws together with tape to make a square, which is the place to hold the egg, as shown in the picture. Then we connected them with newspapers to make two accordions. Since we had no clue about which side the Lander would fall off, we made legs all over the six sides around the square at the centre to keep the egg from touching the ground. The egg was put in the square, which was weaved compactly by the newspaper so that it wouldn’t fall out of the Lander. Finally, we connected the two accordions with four remaining straws. We also made streamers at the top to keep the Lander stable and fall in the direction we wanted it to be.

Result

Even Mr. Chung said that our model was well designed, so when it came to “bet marks for the model that you think is going to work”, lots of people actually betted for our group. But unfortunately, our egg cracked. The reason was that the four straws that connected the accordions took the most impact of hitting the ground. During the “flight”, these straws touched the egg accidently, which in turn transported the shock to the egg and caused the egg cracked. 

Improvement

To improve the model, I think we will have to separate the egg and supporting straws a bit so that the egg won’t be affected so much by the shock. It’s also important to keep the minimum straws possible touching the egg so that the least affect will be transferred to the egg. Also, I think the model should be bigger and having more spaces in between (but keep the egg from falling off the model as well). The legs are necessary to support the model and absorb part of the shock.