Trial April 7th

Trial-Round 2:Thriller in Manil--The Tech...
Threat Level: orange
morale: Ashwin was NOT at this trial and so it was a sad day
rations: filling

We measured sand out in water bottles equal to the weight of the box. We planned to drop these instead of our device because were weren't too confident in their abilities. We had two primary dropping devices which we wanted to test out. One was a low flat design like the top of a rectangular shipping box that had foam on the bottom, a foam frame, and a piece of cardboard over the top. The other device was simply a rectangular box with no padding on the outside but padding on the inside and the water bottles with the sand were safely wedged inside. We dropped both an concluded that we liked the lower flatter design because the rectangular box with no padding bounced upon impact after striking the floor on a corner.

Ashwin and Mo Meet- April 6th

Today Matthew and I met at my house to discuss the dropping aspect of the challenge. At the previous meeting we had gone down to the tech museum trial to test out some of our ideas. We weren't able to actually test our device by dropping it because CASSIE was too afraid that it would break. So the purpose of the meeting today was to work on a way to make sure our device survived the drop for the trial the next day. We decided to try and make a parachute out of an old garbage bag. We had talked about a parachute before but had never made a prototype for it. We decided to attach twine at the four corners and create a frame out of some coathangers to make sure the parachute opened correctly. In our test drops from the balcony it worked reasonably well but was a little unstable and tended to drift as it fell.

Trial March 31st

Trial Trial Trial Trial
threat level: nuclear
morale: delighted
rations: outrageously delicious

The trial today was a complete success! Our decive was able to climb up the crater wall easily and made it over the edge without too much trouble. We were surprised we managed to get what seemed like a working device on our first try. For the next meeting we wanted to focus on creating something to slow or protect the device. But for the day, we were satisfied with the result.

Friday March 30th

Day before trial #1
Threat level: imminent
Morale: ecstatic, nervous
Rations: meager

With the trial only a few hours away we realized that the trial wasn't all that far away and that we needed to try some of our theoretical ideas out. We wanted to go into the trial with something tangible to test we got working. By the end of the evening we had an cannibalized old remote control front loader with strips of velcro attached to the fron wheels. We chose to take off the back wheels to make the device's ascent over the edge of the cliff easier. We didn't have anything to slow the fall or protect the device yet but we were happy that we at least had something to test at the trial the next day.

Friday March 23rd

Today we finally decided to put some of our creative and innovative ideas into action. The first idea that we tried was the helicopter that Matthew brought in from a toy store. We had a vague plan for using the helicopter to carry a string or some part of the device up to the top of the simulated crater. Messing around with the helicopter proved to be the most interesting part of the meeting as well as the most fun until somebody got it stuck on the roof and we had to get it down. In the end we decided against using the helicopter in any part of the device simply because it was too hard to control. We were afraid we wouldn't be able to control it and keep it straight. It sure was fun to fly it around though.......

Friday March 16

Today we launched ourselves into working on the droppping aspect of the challenge. We had previously decided that the dropping and climbing could be approached as seperate problems. We further divided the dropping into two components, slowing down the device and cushioning the fall. Our first potential candidate for slowing down the device parachute. Being the pessimists that we are we decided to list potential problems first.

1)Not opening fully
2)Not being effective enough over a short 12ft drop
3)Since parachutes are characteristically flimsy, danger of ripping
4)Possibility of the device drifting off course
5)Parachute could fall on top of the device and trap it underneath

Then we talked about some potential solutions

1) Using an umbrella to keep the parachute open and stiff
2)Attaching the umbrella to box which contains the device, allowing the device to break down or run through the wall on impact
3)Pre-cut slits on the box so it would collapse on impact leaving the device to begin its ascent up the ramp unfettered
4)Fin.

We felt that we should pursue this venture a little more thoroughly , as such we decided to check out the local home depots and toystores for ideas and come back next week to put some ideas into action.

Team Meeting Friday March 9th

We started off the meeting playing with some Rokenbok tractors
We experimented with different rokenbok vehicles and their different capabilities however, though many of them are different in their components and elements they are all similar in the problems that define and restrict them. Que horrible! The first noticeable problem is that the Rokenboks are quite heavy. Also, the weight distribution wasn't exactly right and we weren't sure they would make it up the crater wall without tipping. Whether they had enough power to even get up the wall was also in question. Another difficulty was that they needed charger dock that needed to be close in proximity to communitcate with the device.



After we dismissed the Rokenbok idea we switched our area of focus onto the dropping part of the challenge. Using our knowledge of Physics, (Mo and Anisha's knowledge) we knew that all objects fall at the same acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/s/s)however, we know that in reality air friction affects lighter objects more. So in theory, if you dropped a bowling ball and a feather from a roof at the same time air friction would affect the feather more than the bowling ball which is why the ball hits the ground first. Because of this idea we knew that we could calculate the time our device would take to hit the landing zone as long as we knew the distance it would fall. Unfortunately we were thwarted by our lack of converting skillz.(yes,skillZ)We gave up.