Jake G.

Weather Balloon Plans

The balloon was are planning to launch has a payload of six pounds and is a square pyramid with a 1 square-foot base. The balloon we are launching is destined to reach a height of 20,000 feet and will be in the air for 4-6 hours of the day. We will take our information for the wind speed and direction from the NOAA organization, so we have a reliable source of information when we launch.

New school year

I have started to take my studies into kinesiology as well as continuing into environmental studies, today I was experimenting with balloons and the blue that was originally meant to be 36 inches and it blew to 4.5 ft. It extremely loud and scared the whole school but I was able to take in important Information.

Tue September 19

Currently, we are working with the muscle sensor and emg. I am getting much better at understanding coding and how to work small circuits and try and keep everyone on track. I am very excited to see where this project goes it could be very successful as we making progress fast as we got setup working with all the parts there and I believe that next class we could start recording data which could lead to starting the actual experiment part of the class with the data.

Friday, Sep 29

This week in WISRD has been another learning week where I have learned more about how to code and how to work the Arduino and muscle sensor I have learned how to use the meg and I am struggling with coding it and getting it to work. I have managed to get the wire to connect but the problems I am having concern obtaining the information from the actual sensor. I may try and use the myoware with the board next week to see if that works but if it doesn’t I may have to relook and take a new approach.

Wed Nov 9

This week in WISRD I have been primarily focused on my inquire article on how you could grow as a child or teenager. But primarily I want to be more focused on my weather ballon again as that is a project I have more interest in, and I have a hook with a hole coming in so I can build a more functional design of the balloon that I can test at school, then I will run some tests launching it into the air after, I will start to email airports and NASA about the airspace in Southern California.

Jan 29,

It’s been a very long time since I last added to my journal but since then I have assembled my balloon parts and collected the parents necessary for the balloon including a parachute and a real weather balloon that was up to Bob’s acceptance level. I have finished the nonrecording code and will soon produce the self-reporting code that will report it onto an SD card. I have also been majorly involved in the Kinesiology lab and have been heavily involved in the experiments that they have been doing and have been experimented on as well as helping g record their other experiments that involve music’s effect on the brain and how it can improve performance. I plan to continue contributing to the Kin. lab and helping them support their experiments. I also plan to finish assembling the balloon and start emailing people again to find out where to get permits for the thing.

Mar 20

It’s been a very long time since I’ve last edited and I have made lots of progress on my balloon. the final adjustments for the test launch have been made and the plan to test launch will be done. I have started work with more EMG sensors and will continue to help and further experiment in the kinesiology lab.

May 6

The poster session was a good experience and I learned a lot about the foundation of how to run a project a lot more reliably and how I should approach new projects going forward. I received a lot of positive feedback on my poster and support on what I should do to take my project to the next step. I have been still reaching out to many sources and airports to try and get permission to launch but it is looking unlikely and we may just have to launch without permission next year. Despite this, I have also been working with the kinesiology group on their project with a working muscle sensor and we have found to work the gain and plan to lab very soon on specific muscle group experiments.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s_02cOJOvMud8BnviCVjwZWtvReq7AUqOubiBR_t0qo/edit#gid=0

Mon Sep 9

Over the past few weeks, I have started the new school with the intent to make a final push for a balloon launch. Megan has contacts apparently that have the knowledge of how to get the permits and are quick with a location to launch. The hope to launch the ballon in the Mojave desert before December the fourteenth is still alive, if Megan does not have the per available I will launch “illegally” yet in the desert to finally confirm the launch. I am finishing the code for the altimeter to record onto an SD card which will be ready by the end of the week.

Tue Sep 10

I have contacted Joe about the balloon which is a great progression meaning I am getting closer to getting the permits. This is a great movement for my project as I will hopefully launch by November.

Wed Sep 18

Bob has helped get into contact with Joe about the balloon so that will hopefully get the ball rolling. I am starting to help more with the hydroponics labs, the main problem is that their third plant grower is constantly overflowing so me and a few others are going to work together to solve that.

Tue Oct 1

So we have made so much progress on the hydroponics lab, with the design of the new running lab. We have decided to make a water drip system where the water is recycled through the filter below where the water is drained into. Then we will re-nutrient the water through a pump system back in a deep root system.

Tue Oct 15

The majority of our efforts, (Me, Rhone, and Zac) have been trying to perfect our dark matter day project, where we are doing an oxygen with alcohol combustion explosion. Today in particular we were diluting the chemicals that make the flame different colors into the alcohol figuring out that we should dilute into water before mixing it with the alcohol solution, as the chemical does not dilute into the alcohol very well. We are getting all of the measurements and materials together, and ready for next Wednesday.

Mon Oct 28

The dark matter day was a big success as we successfully demonstrated multiple times how the combustion experiment in the bottle worked. We had developed a consistent way to make the explosion as visual as possible. The procedure was: First measure out the chemicals, then measure alcohol after amounts and combine, boil and mix until starts to bubble and then mix until the mixture has become fully liquified, then we put it in the bottle not before reliquifying it because the liquid would end up solidifying so we would add alcohol to make it liquid again. Then we get to pour into the rim of the bottle and then add more alcohol into the bottle mix it around then light a match and combust. It worked consistently.

Fri Nov 8

This week I have been finishing this part list and making sure that all my parts for hydroponics have been prepared and ordered as ell as finishing the design to start building immediately once the parts. I have been working on a tinkercad for the design of the hydroponics to visualize the degin.

Nov 22

We have started to make major advancements with the hydroponics lab and have finalized all the ports we have ordered and we will start getting to work with the equipment net week. I am very excited and optimistic about this project and I belive that we can take this very far.

Dec 11

In Wisrd I have devoted the majority of my time to finalizing the pump and water system for the hydroponics project and making sure that our plants are growing. I plan to start to set up the lab and start hooking up the system so we can transfer the plants from the grow tray and start building the real system.