We just printed out our fourth iteration and immediately found flaws in the printing process of this model. We need the threading to be much larger on both sides. I also had the threading measured to be the same diameter which is not what they should be if you want them to fit together. One should be much larger than the other so I will be sure to do this next iteration. The support material was actually stronger than the part itself in some areas, so I will need to make those much thicker and stronger.
Yesterday we had our Tech Shop event and we were just flooded with information about how to improve our project. It has felt like we are spinning our wheels for a while so it's nice to know what the next steps should be. To make the balloon float we could create hydrogen gas through a chemical reaction between an acid and alkali metal. However, if we do that we will need to make the pod out of nylon 618 which is 3D printable. We would make the inner chamber out of PVC piping or some kind of similar material. Because of the caustic nature of acids, we would need some kind of safety feature to ensure that the acid doesn't spill and that the reaction won't happen before it is needed. To test the amount of hydrogen created in this reaction, Wells will be designing an experiment to test how much hydrogen is created when you use a more mild acid, draining cleaner or bleach, with aluminum foil. Troy and I will probably be making our own mylar balloon as well or for proof of concept buying a smaller mylar balloon that we can use instead.
March 1, 2016
The Tech shop event is next week. Troy and I are starting to design what our poster will look like. Troy wants to take it home over the weekend and finish it up.
February 20, 2016
The Xbee module parts came in and Troy will start playing with them figuring out a way to program them. Creating a radio signal is still pretty far down the road but, we are at least getting closer. The Tech Shop mini-symposium is on March 8th which will be a good test run to see what can be improved on with our project.
February 1, 2016
Troy and I had our first City as Our Campus meeting (CAOC) with Mr. Shapiro. Mr. Shapiro has worked with Xbee which is a module that many people use for sending radio signals. He showed Troy and me modules that will work more efficiently for transmitting a radio signal further. Mr. Shapiro also showed us some code to use and how we should test to see if the module is working by using another radio. The signal apparently would only transmit clicks because we would need a full radio tower to transmit a more complicated signal. Therefore, Troy and I may have to learn morse code to send but we will see further down the road when we have completed more. It also seems that we won't have to take apart a radio because the Xbee modules fill that purpose.
January 27, 2016
Troy and I performed an experiment to try and observe the amount of weight a latex balloon with a diameter of 12 inches. To measure how much helium the balloon could hold we first calculated the volume of the balloon in cm^3 and converted that to liters. Now that we knew how much helium a balloon holds when we perform our experiment we can find how much one liter of helium can carry.
December 15, 2015
Currently, Troy and I are working on the first step to radio communication which is Bluetooth communication. You can easily hook up Bluetooth with an Arduino device and then test the system with a phone. We are using Bluetooth first because it is the simplest radio like system with a short range and a simple design to set up. From here we will get a radio transmitter and take it apart to learn how to engineer our own.
November 23, 2015
Troy and I took a vacuum forming class last week at Tech Shop. We learned that vacuum forming is a great way to make fast iterations in case we need to make many different products. We are still deciding what kind of plastic we will use for our project but we do know that the plastic we use will have to be rigid and very durable. This video is trying to sell a vacuum former, however, it also shows how versatile and reliable vacuum forming can be to make perfect molds.
November 11, 2015
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/question185.htm
This article is incredibly important because it tells Troy and I the lift force of a liter of helium. Which will help us to decide how large the balloon we need to ensure it can lift our product off the ground but not fly away.
November 7, 2015
http://www.scientificsales.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=weather+balloon&Click=23202&gclid=CjwKEAiA3_axBRD5qKDc__XdqQ0SJAC6lecA2qec1aMEM6f61mcfE-LgZfFzFElFlgDHeppuChLhVBoCaJnw_wcB
It is actually surprisingly easy to find and buy a weather balloon. The real problem arose when trying to calculate how big of a balloon we will need. We are still trying to figure out how much the box that will contain everything will weigh so we calculated one of the smaller weather balloons lifting force. With a balloon that has a diameter of 25 inches, it can hold 1072 liters of helium so it has a lifting force of 1072 grams. We found this by first converting inches to centimeters (25 x 2.54= 63.5 centimeters). Then we had to find the volume of the sphere (4/3) x pi x 63.5 x 63.5 x 63.5= 1,072,530.831 cm^3. Then we had to convert from centimeters to liters 1,072,530.831 cm^3 x .001= 1072. 530831 liters. So this balloon would be way too big for what we should need but, we will see farther down the road.
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