Well, school's out, but the fun never stops. We'll be bringing you several videos over the summer, if things go as planned, possibly including:
1) More rocket stuff
2) More potato gun stuff
3) More flour stuff (ahem... Vivek....) ;)
4) Diet Coke & Mentos
If you have any other ideas, post them in the comments. Now, here's a simple little video that just shows a Estes "A" engine duct-taped to the side of the rode, in case you ever wanted to see what they looked like while burning but can never get a good look at it during flight.
Of course, that pales in comparison to this monster of a bug:
We *need* to try that.
;)
Friday, June 30, 2006
Friday, March 24, 2006
Concrete, Mice, and No Videos
No club update here, folks. Just checking in...
Faithful reader Dafir sends in these links:
Light-Transmitting Concrete
Mouse Robots
The latter might be an interesting project. The former is just cool. :)
Meanwhile, J.P. pointed out the other day that "iRobot is putting serial ports on all the new Roombas and they have an SDK :-). The cheapest one is $150. Just something to think about if we want to do robot stuff."
As for the videos of our newest ethanol & flour exploits, they're coming. :) There's a fair amount of video to get through, and we all know how busy two weeks off from school (!!!) can be... ;)
(I'm actually quite serious, by the way. It's incredible how free time fills up. Infuriating, too. We need more vacation time...)
But anyway, that's coming. :D
Faithful reader Dafir sends in these links:
Light-Transmitting Concrete
Mouse Robots
The latter might be an interesting project. The former is just cool. :)
Meanwhile, J.P. pointed out the other day that "iRobot is putting serial ports on all the new Roombas and they have an SDK :-). The cheapest one is $150. Just something to think about if we want to do robot stuff."
As for the videos of our newest ethanol & flour exploits, they're coming. :) There's a fair amount of video to get through, and we all know how busy two weeks off from school (!!!) can be... ;)
(I'm actually quite serious, by the way. It's incredible how free time fills up. Infuriating, too. We need more vacation time...)
But anyway, that's coming. :D
Saturday, March 11, 2006
More Ethanol and More Flour, plus Mini-Heli and Brownies
Yesterday we had another great BSEC meeting -- our third good one in a row! :) We had gotten stuck in a bit of a rut with endless Egg Drop delays, but the payoff was good, and now we're on a roll. ;)
PRELIMINARIES
This time, we started off by playing around a bit with Peter's mini-helicopter, a simple styrofoam disc with a remote-controlled propeller facing down. Pull the trigger on the remote, it rises. Pull more, it rises more. Let go a bit, it drops. No steering, but very very fun. It also works as a top if it lands upside-down.
Then the camera and ethanol arrived. We went outside and attempted to burn some flour, but had no luck. Too much wind? Maybe. We doused a brownie in ethanol, though, and burned it in the tin popcorn can. At first we didn't think it was burning, but it was -- boiling, bubbling and blackening, in fact. Only, we couldn't see the flame. Hm. Peter soon discovered, though, that if you drip ethanol on the brownie, you can see a brief flash of flame.
SUCCESS
We went back into the Physics room, turned out the lights, closed the doors, and pulled down the shades. We repeated last meetings' successful formula -- Mr. Clippenger hold the flour in his hand, Peter blowing it over ethanol-fueled burning paper. Only, this time, Peter decided to surprise us -- ESPECIALLY Mr. Clip and Vivek, who was filming in the line of fire -- with a much bigger-than-usual bang. We could actually feel the heat; the light was amazing. MUCH better than last meetings' puny poofs. We did it a few more times; we discovered that Peter could blow a bit, then blow a lot through the mini-fireball and get a nice big fireball stretching out toward Vivek. :)
I'd say our boom was at least ten times as big as the one in the last video. What would you say, Vivek? (I know you're out there...) I think it was probably about as big as my dog. Vivek has the video, so we'll just have to see.
WRAP-UP
After that we went back outside for another brownie-burn and more playing with the hovercraft. We were quite satisfied by our triumphs, and managed to fill the Physics room with a lot of smoke... incredibly, without setting off the smoke detector. (Hmmmm..... methinks we may have faulty equipment....)
All in all, much fun. I'll report in when we figure out what we'll do next time, and with luck Vivek will get some video up here some time.
PRELIMINARIES
This time, we started off by playing around a bit with Peter's mini-helicopter, a simple styrofoam disc with a remote-controlled propeller facing down. Pull the trigger on the remote, it rises. Pull more, it rises more. Let go a bit, it drops. No steering, but very very fun. It also works as a top if it lands upside-down.
Then the camera and ethanol arrived. We went outside and attempted to burn some flour, but had no luck. Too much wind? Maybe. We doused a brownie in ethanol, though, and burned it in the tin popcorn can. At first we didn't think it was burning, but it was -- boiling, bubbling and blackening, in fact. Only, we couldn't see the flame. Hm. Peter soon discovered, though, that if you drip ethanol on the brownie, you can see a brief flash of flame.
SUCCESS
We went back into the Physics room, turned out the lights, closed the doors, and pulled down the shades. We repeated last meetings' successful formula -- Mr. Clippenger hold the flour in his hand, Peter blowing it over ethanol-fueled burning paper. Only, this time, Peter decided to surprise us -- ESPECIALLY Mr. Clip and Vivek, who was filming in the line of fire -- with a much bigger-than-usual bang. We could actually feel the heat; the light was amazing. MUCH better than last meetings' puny poofs. We did it a few more times; we discovered that Peter could blow a bit, then blow a lot through the mini-fireball and get a nice big fireball stretching out toward Vivek. :)
I'd say our boom was at least ten times as big as the one in the last video. What would you say, Vivek? (I know you're out there...) I think it was probably about as big as my dog. Vivek has the video, so we'll just have to see.
WRAP-UP
After that we went back outside for another brownie-burn and more playing with the hovercraft. We were quite satisfied by our triumphs, and managed to fill the Physics room with a lot of smoke... incredibly, without setting off the smoke detector. (Hmmmm..... methinks we may have faulty equipment....)
All in all, much fun. I'll report in when we figure out what we'll do next time, and with luck Vivek will get some video up here some time.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Ethanol and Flour (with video!)
Our plan for today:
1) Play with LEGO Mindstorms set
2) Blow up flour
Flour, you see, is quite flammable in airborne-dust form. So, we got into the Physics classroom and took out a tin popcorn can, some flour, and the LEGO kit. JP immediately got to work on a robot, and we started looking for key ingredients in our experiment.
We got a candle and some matches. We went outside, put the candle in the tin, and lit it. We tried dropping some flour in and we tried blowing on the layer of flour at the bottom of the tin. All was to no avail; we got no reaction. We went back inside and determined we needed a bigger flame. Vivek left to get a bunsen burner and came back with some ethanol. We tried adding a bit of that to the candle, but to no avail. A small crowd gathered but dispersed after multiple failures.
We still needed a bigger flame -- and less wind. We went back inside again and watched this video for inspiration. New strategy: we put the tin on the ground, soaked a piece of paper with the ethanol, dropped it in the tin, lit a piece of paper, dropped that in, and had a nice little fire going. We then sprinkled flour on -- a little bit at first, and then some more.
We had no real video camera, so we used the camera rocket's nose. Quality isn't great, and you don't see some of our best ones, but it's better than nothing! :)
Next meeting we'll be doing this again, since almost everyone had left by the time we succeeded. Maybe we'll get a slightly bigger boom. :)
1) Play with LEGO Mindstorms set
2) Blow up flour
Flour, you see, is quite flammable in airborne-dust form. So, we got into the Physics classroom and took out a tin popcorn can, some flour, and the LEGO kit. JP immediately got to work on a robot, and we started looking for key ingredients in our experiment.
We got a candle and some matches. We went outside, put the candle in the tin, and lit it. We tried dropping some flour in and we tried blowing on the layer of flour at the bottom of the tin. All was to no avail; we got no reaction. We went back inside and determined we needed a bigger flame. Vivek left to get a bunsen burner and came back with some ethanol. We tried adding a bit of that to the candle, but to no avail. A small crowd gathered but dispersed after multiple failures.
We still needed a bigger flame -- and less wind. We went back inside again and watched this video for inspiration. New strategy: we put the tin on the ground, soaked a piece of paper with the ethanol, dropped it in the tin, lit a piece of paper, dropped that in, and had a nice little fire going. We then sprinkled flour on -- a little bit at first, and then some more.
We had no real video camera, so we used the camera rocket's nose. Quality isn't great, and you don't see some of our best ones, but it's better than nothing! :)
Next meeting we'll be doing this again, since almost everyone had left by the time we succeeded. Maybe we'll get a slightly bigger boom. :)
Egg Drop Aftermath: Autopsies
As today marks the two-week anniversary of our momentous egg launch contest, I thought I'd fill you in with a little more detail concerning the fates of our three rockets.
Vivek & Co. Potato Gun
Vivek's group's egg was, needless to say, completely obliterated. The vessel carrying it was just as wholy annihilated. The egg formed a small crater in the sand of the baseball diamond (see image at right).
The potato gun suffered some trauma of its own. As you can see in the video, Mr. Clippenger screwed the cap on very thoroughly. Unfortunately, this resulted in the cap being stuck shut. Fortunately, the issue has been resolved. :)
In addition, a small black film canister was found in the barrel of the potato gun. My hypothesis is that the canister was somehow part of Vivek's team's contraption, although I can't be sure.
Peter & Co. Long Rocket
Peter's group suffered a sad blow when their rocket's engine shot up through the body, through the egg, and forced its way out the top. The rocket itself never left the ground. The egg, found shortly thereafter, had a scorch mark and had been shattered, albeit not as completely as Vivek's.
The body shows few signs of trauma. One fin had broken off, although it is unclear how. The fin was found some time after the competition had concluded for the day, and was splattered somewhat with egg. The initial assumption was that the fin had come from my group's stubby cup rocket, but was changed after witnessed the missing fin on Peter's rocket.
The upper tube shows a slight rip in the cardboard, although it is unclear whether or not this was a result of the engine malfunction. The parachute, which (using the hole in the middle) had been slipped down over the nose of the rocket prior to launch, showed slight burns and fusing, although it is again unclear whether it was a recent injury.
The interior of the body shows no readily visible signs of scorching.
Toph & Co. Cup Rocket
The rocket appeared to launch well. The top portion separated as it was supposed to; the second stage opened up like a clamshell and deployed the parachute, just as it was supposed to. But upon landing it was found that the cup had split along the side and was oozing egg.
As it was a relatively soft landing, it is not clearly understood why the cup split. It is possible, from examining the video, that the rocket may have hit a tree branch. This would explain the strange crack, which we believe could not have resulted from that landing.
A second idea is that the stresses of liftoff cracked, compressed, and/or split the egg and cup. The parachute ejection charge that separated the booster phase from the carrier phase may also be to blame.
Mysteriously, the whereabouts of the remains of the cup rocket remain unknown. The video depicts Mr. Clippenger bringing it off to one side, but it is unclear exactly what he did to it or what happened thereafter.
Conclusion
Our inaugural egg launch/drop contest was not a success. However, it was certainly entertaining and educational. We look forward to a second contest sometime next year. That contest will hopefully be both better documented and more carefully analyzed. This is the Beaver SCIENCE and Engineering Club, after all. We should attempt next time to calculate such properties of each launch as velocity, distance, height, and more.
Vivek & Co. Potato Gun
Vivek's group's egg was, needless to say, completely obliterated. The vessel carrying it was just as wholy annihilated. The egg formed a small crater in the sand of the baseball diamond (see image at right).
The potato gun suffered some trauma of its own. As you can see in the video, Mr. Clippenger screwed the cap on very thoroughly. Unfortunately, this resulted in the cap being stuck shut. Fortunately, the issue has been resolved. :)
In addition, a small black film canister was found in the barrel of the potato gun. My hypothesis is that the canister was somehow part of Vivek's team's contraption, although I can't be sure.
Peter & Co. Long Rocket
Peter's group suffered a sad blow when their rocket's engine shot up through the body, through the egg, and forced its way out the top. The rocket itself never left the ground. The egg, found shortly thereafter, had a scorch mark and had been shattered, albeit not as completely as Vivek's.
The body shows few signs of trauma. One fin had broken off, although it is unclear how. The fin was found some time after the competition had concluded for the day, and was splattered somewhat with egg. The initial assumption was that the fin had come from my group's stubby cup rocket, but was changed after witnessed the missing fin on Peter's rocket.
The upper tube shows a slight rip in the cardboard, although it is unclear whether or not this was a result of the engine malfunction. The parachute, which (using the hole in the middle) had been slipped down over the nose of the rocket prior to launch, showed slight burns and fusing, although it is again unclear whether it was a recent injury.
The interior of the body shows no readily visible signs of scorching.
Toph & Co. Cup Rocket
The rocket appeared to launch well. The top portion separated as it was supposed to; the second stage opened up like a clamshell and deployed the parachute, just as it was supposed to. But upon landing it was found that the cup had split along the side and was oozing egg.
As it was a relatively soft landing, it is not clearly understood why the cup split. It is possible, from examining the video, that the rocket may have hit a tree branch. This would explain the strange crack, which we believe could not have resulted from that landing.
A second idea is that the stresses of liftoff cracked, compressed, and/or split the egg and cup. The parachute ejection charge that separated the booster phase from the carrier phase may also be to blame.
Mysteriously, the whereabouts of the remains of the cup rocket remain unknown. The video depicts Mr. Clippenger bringing it off to one side, but it is unclear exactly what he did to it or what happened thereafter.
Conclusion
Our inaugural egg launch/drop contest was not a success. However, it was certainly entertaining and educational. We look forward to a second contest sometime next year. That contest will hopefully be both better documented and more carefully analyzed. This is the Beaver SCIENCE and Engineering Club, after all. We should attempt next time to calculate such properties of each launch as velocity, distance, height, and more.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Egg Drop Aftermath: Update
As you saw in Vivek's last post, our thrice-delayed egg drop contest was finally concluded last Friday. I think it was a big success, at least in terms of entertainment value. :)
The only bad thing that happened all day was the final rocket getting stuck in a tree. I am now happy to report that Mr. Clippenger has managed to retrieve the rocket, and it seems to be in pretty good shape, despite its week exposed to the elements (including snow, and lots of it).
You can see in Vivek's video that it was hanging very precariously from the end of a thin branch. It actually fell from that spot even before we went back inside, only to land more securely in the neighboring pine. Fortunately, it's fine now. I was prepared to blast the tree with a potato...
The stormy edge of the silver lining to the stormy cloud of landing-in-a-tree-ness is that, well, we forget to start the camera rolling. :( Hey, don't blame us -- it was freezing out there, the wind knocked over the launch pad and rocket if you waited more than 30 seconds, it was our fourth launch of the day, and we were eager to go back inside and eat lunch. But the recovery means it shall live to film another day -- the meeting after next, perhaps?
Speaking of last meeting, the consensus at this point is to break out the Mindstorms and play around. Stay tuned.
The only bad thing that happened all day was the final rocket getting stuck in a tree. I am now happy to report that Mr. Clippenger has managed to retrieve the rocket, and it seems to be in pretty good shape, despite its week exposed to the elements (including snow, and lots of it).
You can see in Vivek's video that it was hanging very precariously from the end of a thin branch. It actually fell from that spot even before we went back inside, only to land more securely in the neighboring pine. Fortunately, it's fine now. I was prepared to blast the tree with a potato...
The stormy edge of the silver lining to the stormy cloud of landing-in-a-tree-ness is that, well, we forget to start the camera rolling. :( Hey, don't blame us -- it was freezing out there, the wind knocked over the launch pad and rocket if you waited more than 30 seconds, it was our fourth launch of the day, and we were eager to go back inside and eat lunch. But the recovery means it shall live to film another day -- the meeting after next, perhaps?
Speaking of last meeting, the consensus at this point is to break out the Mindstorms and play around. Stay tuned.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Sixth Meeting Preview: Egg Drop Finale
This Friday we are concluding our egg drop contest, which we have spent the past two meetings preparing. Attendance dropped to an all-time low last meeting, and we're hoping to get some more people at this one.
Peter Wilmot's group will launch their egg-rocket, as will mine. Vivek's group will launch their egg out of the potato gun. And filming all the excitement will be a rocket with a down-facing video camera launched seconds before the others, which will hopefully give us some idea of how high the different eggs went.
Come by and watch!
Peter Wilmot's group will launch their egg-rocket, as will mine. Vivek's group will launch their egg out of the potato gun. And filming all the excitement will be a rocket with a down-facing video camera launched seconds before the others, which will hopefully give us some idea of how high the different eggs went.
Come by and watch!
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Potential Future Projects
There's so much fun to be had with ballistics, robotics, engineering and science in general. Way too much to fit it all in, especially considering we can only meet once every two weeks. But here are some potential long-term projects.
---
Potato Gun: Build One
Build a new potato gun. More powerful, more adaptable, smaller, bigger, easier to use, whatever -- just better in general. We could stick with combustion or move to a pnuematics-based system.
Potato Gun: Stress Testing
Fire a potato at things and see how well they hold up. Brick wall? Wood wall? Pile of cans? Pile of trash cans? A dummy?
Oh, wouldn't it be fun to have a dummy...
;-)
Potato Rocket [& Launcher]
Stick a rocket engine in a potato and see what happens. Or adapt the potato gun to work as a sort of potato rocket launcher. :)
Rockets: Misc.
Experiment with building rockets in different ways. Two stage, multiple simultaneous engines, booster rockets - you name it. Maybe have a contest, "who can build the coolest rocket."
Rocket-Powered Merry-Go-Round
Stick a rocket on the side of a miniaturemerry-go-round and make a rocket-powered merry-go-round.
Rocket-Powered Other Stuff
Name something, and we'll make it rocket-powered. Frisbee, for instance.
Well, not anything... safety first, remember! :)
Bridge-Building Contest
Build a bridge. The one that can support the most weight wins!
(Bonus points for making it potato gun-proof.)
Remote Controlled Car/Boat/Plane
Bonus points for making it intelligent, and thus a robot. More bonus points for making it rocket-powered! :)
Soccer Robot
Make a soccer-playing robot... or, even better, a team of soccer-playing robots!
Robotics: Misc.
Make other cool robots. :)
Hovercraft
Bigger? Smaller? Faster? Maneuverable?
Rocket-powered???
Actual Physics
Calculate how far a potato or rocket goes, project trajectories, and so on. This would just be incorporated into our other projects.
---
I will update this list as we come up with more ideas. Stay tuned!
---
Potato Gun: Build One
Build a new potato gun. More powerful, more adaptable, smaller, bigger, easier to use, whatever -- just better in general. We could stick with combustion or move to a pnuematics-based system.
Potato Gun: Stress Testing
Fire a potato at things and see how well they hold up. Brick wall? Wood wall? Pile of cans? Pile of trash cans? A dummy?
Oh, wouldn't it be fun to have a dummy...
;-)
Potato Rocket [& Launcher]
Stick a rocket engine in a potato and see what happens. Or adapt the potato gun to work as a sort of potato rocket launcher. :)
Rockets: Misc.
Experiment with building rockets in different ways. Two stage, multiple simultaneous engines, booster rockets - you name it. Maybe have a contest, "who can build the coolest rocket."
Rocket-Powered Merry-Go-Round
Stick a rocket on the side of a miniaturemerry-go-round and make a rocket-powered merry-go-round.
Rocket-Powered Other Stuff
Name something, and we'll make it rocket-powered. Frisbee, for instance.
Well, not anything... safety first, remember! :)
Bridge-Building Contest
Build a bridge. The one that can support the most weight wins!
(Bonus points for making it potato gun-proof.)
Remote Controlled Car/Boat/Plane
Bonus points for making it intelligent, and thus a robot. More bonus points for making it rocket-powered! :)
Soccer Robot
Make a soccer-playing robot... or, even better, a team of soccer-playing robots!
Robotics: Misc.
Make other cool robots. :)
Hovercraft
Bigger? Smaller? Faster? Maneuverable?
Rocket-powered???
Actual Physics
Calculate how far a potato or rocket goes, project trajectories, and so on. This would just be incorporated into our other projects.
---
I will update this list as we come up with more ideas. Stay tuned!
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