Zaniyah H.

Journal entries imported from the previous iteration of wisrd.org

2.7.2022

2.1.2022

The first print for the exo arm was done yesterday, and coming back this morning, the print did not finish overnight. The full design was not completed, and stopped about 25% of the way through. The print is to be retried today with all settings the same except for the infill which was increased from 30% to 40%. This is because after inspecting the first attempt, the layer seemed inconsistent and not as durable as it should be.

Unfinished Exo Arm #1 Print

There also seems to be a recurring problem with the PLA material, as it continuously experiences a blockage within the printer head. This should be further looked into and reported on later.

1.31.2022

The print reprint from last Thursday finally was completed. The problem with the last print was that the infill was too low. Underneath all the pieces from the last print was not fully completed and the infill was on 20%, so this time I increased it to 30% and it proved successful.

1.24.2022

Started a 6 hour print for the youbionic hand. The settings for the print via Ultimaker Cura were set to a 20% infill, support through extruder 2, adhesion through extruder 1 on brim while using PLA AA 0.4, and PVA BB 0.4. The computer didn’t accept the print at first, due to the PVA material not being loaded. This was an easy fix, as I just loaded the material manually through the printer.

11:17 am Print failed for the 3rd time. The settings were set for the filament to leave a blob, and the material left in place for the blob was quite small, and the rest of the material was not coming out of the nozzle well. There weren’t strong connections from the filament left and the print had to be aborted and restarted.

1.23.2022

Complications with the print file UME 27 were had. There was a material blockage within the nozzle and the

1.12.2022

The first print came out perfect and is now dissolving. It was found that there was a lot of space left on the build plate during the first print so I am now putting 5 pieces on print to cut down on time.

The second print had some problems the first time. The problem was that the PLA filament was backed up, and the pieces themselves did not stick to the plate. Now at 1:54 pm, I am reprinting them with the adjustment of adding adhesion to the bottom of the pieces and will update later.

1.11.2022

Began 3-D printing through the CURA software for parts of an exohand by youbionic. It has 28 pieces in total and then I can begin putting them together, but in the meantime, I’m looking at the wiring of the hand and putting together a parts list. More updates are to be had later.

Wiring of Youbionic Exohand Model

12.9.2021

when resistors are in series, just add them up by applying OHM’s law

12.3.2021

Spent time researching background information on circuits and breadboarding. Seeing as it was something that is crucial for the current project ENABLE is involved in, it’s very important. I’ve been learning about solderless breadboards and how they are used, for example, they are separated into rows and columns and so when you want to put, for instance, a resistor into the board in pin A1, it will also be electrically connected to pins B1, C1, D1, and, E1 which are all in the same row. The blue and red channels with positive and negative signs attached on the sides of a breadboard are called buses or rails, and their purpose is to generate power to the entire circuit. So when using a battery pack in your circuit, it tells you where to connect the negative and positive sides of it to make the circuit run.

12.3.2021

circuits sometimes have polarity meaning that the direction in which an, LED light, for instance, is facing matters. The two legs of an LED are slightly different because one of the legs is a tad bit longer. The longer side of the LED has to be connected to the battery pack’s red side because it is positive, and the shorter side to the battery pack’s blue or black side because it’s negative.

11.16.2021

The problem was identified. We were actually missing two parts for the finger. We are missing the tip of one finger the middle joint was in fact too small for the other. We will begin re-printing these parts tomorrow.

11.15.2021

3 of the 5 fingers have been strung together but we ran into a problem. There seems to be either a missing piece for one of the fingers or the piece that we do have has the wrong dimensions. This probably means that we’ll have to go back and identify what piece is missing from which finger so that we can re-print it. ASAP.

11.12.2021

Started using a nylon string to connect fingers together. I’ve started stringing them together today. I would put a string through all the parts, make sure that they are tightly packed, and start tying knots on either end to keep it in place. Then move to the other end.

Strung Middle and Pinky Fingers

11.8.2021

The poster session was tonight and the WISRD E-NABLE group executed it really well. We drafted a pitch to use for the attendees on zoom but as for the attendees in person, we did a really good job of making it interactive, answering any questions that were posed, and outlining our work and goals. We got good feedback that it was engaging and interesting, and some of the questions have even led us to sort out problems, and think deeper into what we’ve done so far.

10.11.2021

After switching labs into E-NABLE. I’ve gotten to work on building an anthropomorphic multi-finger prosthetic hand. 4/6 parts for the hand have been printed and progress in building a 741 op-amp circuit has been made.

10.6.2021

There was a problem with the voltage on the last circuit and it actually wasn’t working how it was supposed to. I fixed it today by completely starting over. I connected one wire(the far-left white one) to ground. I then took the blue wire and used it to get my +5 volts in and used the white wire to the far-left to get not -5 volts out. Two 10k resistors were used for my negative volts in and positive volts out.

Edited 741 op-amp circuit

10.5.2021

Using a breadboard, I built a basic inverting amplifier. I put +5 volts in and -5 volts out to get a gain of 10. An op-amp, or operational amplifier, is an integrated circuit that works to amplify weak electrical signals. I will be using a general-purpose 741 op-amp for the filtering process.

Completed 741 op-amp circuit

2.11.2021

all caught up on my collection days for the radio telescope group. we recently had a meeting with some astronomers from Australia, and we were joined by our other collaborators from before(Glen Langston, Pranav, Eric Trumbauer, David Schultz, John Makous, etc.) It was a productive meeting and they liked the work we were doing. More recently like this week, we met within our WISRD Radio Telescope group and discussed relative velocities. It was a very productive meeting that we had because now the members in the WISRD group, myself included, now know how to log in our data to the graph we have.

2.11.2021

during class today I plan to email Zaniyah and touch bases on our research while furthering my progress in that. I expect to meet with Dani and Scott today and check in on the article topics we’ve received for the next issue. Hope to start the draft writing process soon, so that I can begin editing them. Also, plan to ask about the next board meeting.

1.11.2021

entered in a graph for January 8th’s data. I had the same frequency as Tobey and Allyson and Tobey’s intensity was around mine but a bit less. What was interesting was that all of our peaks were the same. So we think we should possibly make separate graphs for our intensity.

1.8.21

Had a meeting with our Radio Telescope collaborators. They also brought their students and we asked some questions, but it was nice because we were all in the same boat with progress and our levels of understanding on Radio Astronomy. We compared graphs and set up a discord server for the students to stay in communication and partnership. We plan to meet again in a month’s time to compare and discuss our progress.

1.5.21

I attended my second board meeting yet. We talked about an upcoming collaboration for the Radio Telescope group that would really help, the PANOPTES group got an invitation to present so they are looking to reach out to the seniors from last year and some of the members from this year to present, and lastly the possibility of publicizing some research journals for some groups. This involves some of the groups I’m in (NASA challenge and Radio Telescope). A couple of other things like the reveal of our Spring poster session lecturer and that the WISRD website is done so we need to fix that.

12.16.2020

No major updates. Might help out with the Radio Telescope group because they’re looking for new helpers and I have extra time. Possibly with data.

12.15.2020

I attended a board meeting today. The board decided to cancel Innovative L.A. because it doesn’t look like we’d be able to hold that event under the new COVID-19 guidelines. That sucks because I had an idea for Innovated L.A. to set up little build-a-hand stations for smaller kids. On the brighter side, I joined a new committee. Ian Norfolk had an idea to have a more informal setup to update those interested in our labs. It’s called “WISRD Gallery.” I thought that was a great idea and had a lot to contribute, and I was welcomed in.

12.14.2020

I’ve been researching brainwave-controlled prosthetics and I found a lot of research from the University of Chicago. This made me think it would be in our favor to use our resources in WISRD and collaborate with the EMOTIV group. Their work is focused on the brain so what better person to help out with this. Things are looking up for the E-NABLE group as we continue our research.

10.1.2020

As of today, I switched labs from EMOTIV to ENABLE. From time to time, ENABLE still works with EMOTIV and in the foreseeable future, we will be working with EMOTIV. I now work with Zaniyah Hester and because we are in different class blockings for WISRD, we have been working closely through email. I just got briefed on where she intends to head with the lab and what steps she plans to take. It seems like this is more my kind of rodeo because ENABLE is more hands-on with things and has more opportunities for engineering different items than EMOTIV did.

9.24.2020

RECAP OF MY WEEK

• considering options

• Recently, I wanted to explore the possibility of joining a different lab in WISRD. I was a bit interested in AR/VR and E-NABLE because it seems like I could really offer something great to those labs, even if I’m not an officer of that lab. This is going to be an interesting time for me because one I don’t know what I’m getting into and two I don’t really have much experience with any of the things either lab does. Even though this is true, it’ll be good for me to learn a thing or two from them.

• researched EMOTIV

• I began to research EMOTIV a little bit just to see what the lab had to offer. Honor, the other person in the lab with me, came across this EMOTIV earbud while researching. We were looking for new ways that would help us propel this lab forward and this looks like the perfect choice.

• received the head cap and the laptop

• Joe stopped by my house and dropped off the equipment needed to jumpstart this research.

• got the headset and this type of gel

• made another stop to get more equipment

• finished publications work

• a while back I finished the publications work, Dani Barrett tasked to me as her assistant editor. I had to catalog all of the existing articles, white papers, and research journals and then catalog the WISRD roster.

8.26.2020

My first day back to WISRD was a couple of days ago but it was only today where I was allowed to either stick or twist with my current involvement in the cosmic ray detectors. I decided I was going to continue to work with Tobey Steiner and Honor Dodd on the cosmic ray detector for an upcoming white paper, but I will also work to move forward with projects in the Emotiv lab. My goal for the next two weeks to come is to work on a project that’ll keep eyes on Emotiv.

2.20.2020

Today’s Agenda:

• Find a time over the weekend to meet for Innovated L.A.

• Go Over the FRR Script & Outline

• Then Work on the Scintillator

Prepping the Scintillator for Drilling

2.18.2020

I was able to finish my WISRD article rough draft over the weekend which gave me time to revise it just a little bit and get to work on the Flight Readiness Report. We have set some deadlines that we intend to meet. We want to be finished with our scripts and check them by Thursday so that we could rehearse it next week.

2.13.2020

We decided to re-measure the centrifuge. Instead of measuring from the center of mass, we re-measured from the last detector in the middle. We made a little adjustment to our equation and then ran the centrifuge. We ran the centrifuge at 10g’s and got the necessary data we needed. Because the last time we did this the centrifuge fell over, we strapped it down with harnesses and ducktape.

The detector in Action at 10g’sThe Detector Right Before we Started Completely Strapped Down with Ducktape and Harnesses

2.12.2020

Yesterday we ran the centrifuge to test our detectors and it went really well. We found the equation we should use to find how fast we need to run the detector at how many G’s. But when we ran it at 8g’s after running for 4 minutes. So tomorrow when we try again we’ll have to strap it down more securely.

The Detector at 8g’sIMG_5386The Detector at 8g’s

2.8.2020

FInished Front of the BoardFInished Front of the BoardFinished Back of the Board

2.6.2020

I wasn’t able to fully finish the rest of the board today because I am missing the 3.0 mm jack. I talked to Tobey to see if it’s missing or if we’re out of them. But I have class tomorrow so hopefully, I can be able to do the rest of the board tomorrow if we find the missing part.

Front of the Board Completely Done with No Extra Work Done

2.4.2020

Currently starting a new board while we work on a looking for what went wrong on the other board I made. I was able to finish the main PCB board today. So my goal for tomorrow is to finish the rest of the board.

Front of the Board Completely Done

1.22.2020

I finished one board so far yesterday, but Joe was looking at the newly finished board and an old one we did before and found a problem. He said that it was an issue with the Arduino. We looked at the Arduino today and found out that it just doesn’t work sometimes, because it gave us a wonky read a few times while we were looking at it. We’ve had this issue before with the Arduinos and purchased new ones, but seeing as there’s another problem, we decided to just examine them before we put them on the board and after.

1.20.2020

We got the data back and Joe put Honor and Tobey on the job to analyze it, while Axil and I work to make more cosmic ray detectors.

1.18.2020..

We had a launch day in the Mojave desert. I couldn’t make it but Tobey and Axil were able to, and we got a lot of good data from the launch. We should be analyzing the data when we get back to school. They were lucky enough to even get a quick video of the rocket launching.

IMG_0579

1.16.2020

The WISRD team on the NASA payload project is thinking about maybe getting a reed switch to turn the payload on and off using a magnetic field.

1.13.2020

The CDR presentation was today, and we really pulled this one out of the bag. The NASA team on the call with us was really amazed at the work we’ve done since the PDR. They gave us more compliments than anything saying we had a lot of good progress and really took in the suggestions from last time. Each member from both WISRD and NDA did a really fantastic job.

Team Athena and WISRD members presenting for the CDR to NASA

1.11.2020

We had a practice run-through for our upcoming CDR for the NASA payload project. Team Athena from NDA came over to Wildwood to meet with us. We went over the CDR to look for any errors and see both sides of the presentation.

1.8.2020

I finished CDR slides and sent it to the rest of my group members in WISRD.

1.7.2020

Slide assignments for the Critical Design Review were assigned today, we had slides 24-37 to assign and now we can just start writing our scripts. We also wrote down all dates/deadlines in our calendars to be on target for the upcoming CDR. We had a brief meeting on practices we should attend and who can go Huntsville in April when they launch the rocket.

1.6.2020

Today, was my first day back from break and we had found out that the girls from Notre Dame have been working on the upcoming Critical Design Review and are close to being done, which means that it’s about time for us to start working on our part for the CDR. The CDR is similar to the Preliminary Design Review that we did before, but this time it’ll be in front of more people but similar content. I saw similar because this time they want to see us do some more work on what we said we would do and our progress since then. So today, we started going over the slides and trying to focus in on what we should do.

Side View of Completed BoardBird’s Eye View of Completed Board

12.2.19

The first day back from Fall Break, and we had a lot of catching up to do so that we would be on target for when we go on winter break. Everyone had tasks to make sure we’d be ready before December, so I had taken on the task of just completing the cosmic ray detector. Seeing as how I’m the Cosmic-Ray Detector leader and so I had to immediately set up my workspace and get to work on building 2 complete detectors. I plan on coming by after soccer practice to finish the detector because I am one piece away from being done with it.

11.18.19

Draft #1 of What I Will Say for PDRDraft #2 of What I Will Say for PDRDraft #3 of What I Will Say for PDR

11.11.19

We did a mini run-through of what we were going to say fr our slide presentation with NASA(PDR). I was focusing on gathering visuals to spruce up our presentation. I have the first slide and the last slide which means I’ll have more points to introduce and get across. I began writing my script which should be done tomorrow. Very nervous.

11.5.19

I finished editing one of my colleagues, Jackson’s, papers. Being an assistant editor it is my job to look over and revise papers that are assigned to me. My first paper was Jackson’s paper on the Aerodynamics of Wind Tunnels. There was a lot of editing to be done on the paper, as it seemed to have been very basic, and not as abstract as most people might like it to be. I gave good constructive feedback that should be able to help him in the future. The submission deadline is November 7th, 2019 but I was able to put it in today just hours ago. I had some time left on my hands, so I ended up finishing the day off by editing an email to be sent to the leader of the Team Athena, Dr. Griffis.

11.4.19

I had my first WISRD poster presentation yesterday, and there were a lot of positives to note. I was a very good speaker while I was explaining to some of the parents that stopped by. I was able to recite some of the things I learned at UCLA back to the parents in an easily comprehensible manner. This was a fun experience to be able to share my knowledge of my project with others and see what they thought about it. This was even our biggest turnout yet with 60 people and a good keynote speaker, who was able to relate to the work that we were doing in WISRD. It was very engaging and we had a lot of positive feedback about the presentation and the speaker. Last night, was a big success!

Axil B. and Nnenna B. Next to Their Cosmic Ray Detector at UCLA Explore Your Universe Day

11.3.19

Today I went to UCLA for an event that WISRD was invited to, to talk about our cosmic watch cosmic ray detectors. One of our main objectives was to meet one of the guys who has done the same experiment we are currently doing to end up collaborating with him in the future. My team and I were able to successfully meet Nathan and exchange contact info. My colleague, Axil, and I were able to get a chance to talk to him where we found out what he did. He’s doing the same thing experiment the WISRD team is doing, but a more intensive version of it. He goes down to the south pole where he and his team detect cosmic rays down there. This opportunity was really fun, and useful because we had random people at the event come into our room looking to find out more about cosmic rays, like what they are and what they do. This was good training for our PDR where we have to explain the same thing to 200 people. I also found out more information about my topic which should come in handy for tomorrow night.

11.1.19

Today was quite eventful. To start off Joe informed us of another event that’s supposed to be happening Sunday. We were apparently asked to come to the UCLA event from 12-5 because they saw the cosmic watch detector we were building and have never seen anything like it and asked us to come to showcase it this weekend. And this is supposed to be our top priority now because Joe said that we can do the PDR anytime like run-through it. This event takes top priority because it gives us a chance to network with the people that work in the high-energy physics field. After that announcement, I had to help Axil B. prepare for the PDR run-through on Sunday since I can’t make it. I gave him my notes and showed him where to find the slideshow that they shared with us. And finally, I started adding and going over the parts list to see which parts we need to order. Pretty successful day.

10.31.19

Today, I had a meeting with Joe to discuss the details for the run-through PDR on Sunday. We talked about what I was going to say about the slides, so I wouldn’t mess up or look bad on Sunday. I took a few notes on what he said for some of the slides and added a little bit more to my notes. I can’t wait till the meeting but I’m a little nervous because I don’t want to look bad. Anyways, Happy Halloween!

Screenshot From the Document for the Poster

10.30.19

I took the day to start working on my part for the poster presentation coming up soon. I’m closing in close for the deadline which is November 3rd, so this at the moment is my highest priority. I got assigned to write about our progress so far on this project and make sure it gets done by the end of the week so I don’t have much to stress about this weekend.

10.28.19

Today, Joe told us that we’d have to get ready for a PDR run-through happening Sunday in El Segundo. It’s not mandatory but we really should be there to help prepare for it so we know the gist of how to do it for the real one on November 20th. This should be really good practice but we have to make sure we really do a good job. We’ll probably begin preparing for it starting tonight or tomorrow.

Another Image of the Circuit Board

9.19.19

This was my first day at WISRD in 9th grade and there’s nothing to do yet. I want to do ENABLE or RECON so I’ll probably have to reach out to them soon. Excited for what’s to come.

9.13.19

Muons would be best described as an unstable subatomic particle. These muons weigh about 200x more than an electron and can be found in Earth’s upper crust. When cosmic rays enter Earth’s atmosphere, they collide with air molecules creating Muons, the decay product of this collision. As a product of this collision, muons are connected to cosmic rays. Cosmic rays could become quite dangerous and cause damage to the human body. In 2017, there was a study found on how cosmic rays could increase the risk of cancer for the astronauts going to Mars. They are able to cause this high amount of damage to human cells because they carry high volumes of ionization. Another study stated that cosmic ray radiation can also cause damage to the vascular system by damaging the heart, hardening and narrowing the arteries, which would end up causing cardiovascular disease.

10.7.19

A lot has happened since the last time I journaled. My team and I were able to finish soldering all of the parts that we have onto the board, although we are missing some crucial parts for the board. We will probably end up ordering those parts tomorrow if we have class, or I will come in at lunch. More exciting news…WE GOT THE NASA GRANT! We were all very excited that this happened. We now have to write up a report for them informing them more about our work, and getting WISRD some more exposure. So far my freshman year in WISRD is looking great. I have a lot of experience with soldering. For example, it took me less than 3 minutes to solder and adjust 3 parts onto the board. I won’t be doing any more circuit board for now, because I have to turn my attention to finishing up my part of the report for next week.

10.8.19

Although, part of our WISRD class was interrupted by a fire drill today, I was able to finish my part of the report due next week. This means that when we come back to school on Thursday, I can resume soldering the circuit board, but since I finished, I will just begin a new circuit board. Not much has happened yet, but there is supposed to be a call-in conference tomorrow morning at Wildwood School.

10.11.19

I just got an email from Joe right now saying that he has just found the correct parts list, so this is great because this means that we can move forward and fix anything that needs fixing and make new boards.

An Email From Joe Letting us Know About the Situation

10.22.19

Yesterday Afternoon, 2 girls from Notre Dame Academy(NDA) came to Wildwood to discuss the details of our PDR presentation. We went over the notes I took from a phone call with NASA, and I filled them in on some of the things that they would be looking for. After that, we showed them a little bit of what we have already done, and they were quite impressed. I showed them a sample of a finished cosmic ray detector that Bob built, and one that I was in the middle of building which wasn’t yet complete. I was leading the meeting with them as well, and it ended with them getting a picture of us for their twitter page.

A Tweet That Team Athena(Notre Dame Academy) Posted After the Meeting

10.23.19

Right after the meeting with Notre Dame Academy, I had to start working on the PDR which was now our top priority. I had to read up on cosmic watch and become an expert on it basically. This meant knowing who has made what, who did what experiments relating to what we’re doing, how it came to be, etc. The parts after reading up on what I needed became a whole lot easier. With all the information I had now, all I had to do was just write a paragraph explaining why we chose to use the battery and cosmic watch. Hopefully, I can finish it on time.

10.24.19

10.25.19

Nothing that important happened because I’m pretty much caught up on everything so, it gave me time to continue soldering the circuit board. I have been doing a pretty good job of working to complete the board before the deadline so I can move forward to making more. And since I got the new correct parts list, I should be putting in the order for more parts soon.

Almost Finished Circuit Board