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kateh516

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  1. Team Name: Arabian Knights Available Funds: 200,000 Vehicle Name: Explorer I Vehicle Parts List and Cost: MK1 Command Pod MK16 Parachute RT-10 "Hammer" Solid Fuel Booster Total Cost: $1848.60 Design Goals: A Functional rocket for our goals Launch Goal: Launch to 10,000m Pilot Plan: Guide rocket to 10,000m and return to Kerbin safely Launch Time: Around May 16, 2016 between the time of 10:25 and 11:05 Team Members Present: TJ Paps, Srossi, Khoops Play-by-Play: As the engines fired, and Jebediah left the surface we learned what the difference between solid and liquid fuel. As we watched the rocket continue up without anyway of slowing it down, we waited until all the fuel was used to try to return Jebediah safely home. Unfortunately this was not possible because we were not able to drop the fuel tank. The command pod exploded when it hit the ground and consequently, so was Jebediah. We mourn his loss. Summary: Launch! Then we realized we had messed up drastically. Jebediah dies. A song is written in his memory. Lyrics are included below. LYRICS: Jebediah you were so great, but now our design flaws have taken you away! The pod went up so high, but the parachute would not deploy so you crashed and burned and left us all alone Opportunities / Learnings: You need a decoupler so you can drop the solid fuel because it will explode upon impact if not gotten rid of. Strategies / Project Timeline: Next rocket launch, we will need a decoupler Milestone Awards Presented: No Award Presented Available Funds: 197,151.40
  2. Team Name: Arabian Knights Available Funds: 184,782.80 Vehicle Name: Arabian I Vehicle Parts List and Cost: Mk1 Command Pod Mk16 Parachute FL-T 400 Fuel Tank (4) LV- 909 "Temer" LV- T30 TR-18A decoupler (2) Total Cost: 6,905.60 Design Goals: Get off of Kerbin and into Orbit Launch Goal: Stable Manned Orbit Pilot Plan: To launch rocket and get into orbit by turning at 45 degrees around 10,000m. Then at 50,000m establish a path to orbit. At 100,000m turn 90 degrees and fire engines to get into orbit. Return safely. Launch Time: 5/19/16 10:48am Team Members Present: TJ Paps, Srossi, Khoops Play-by-Play: The engines fired and off Valentina went. Slowly. Our rocket was very heavy. Note that we launched in the middle of Kerbin's night so the only light we could see was that of the runway and the engine burning. It was quite the sight. We continued our ascent until 10km where we turned to 45degrees. After the first engine ran out of fuel (occurred around 30km) we started the next engine to keep us going to try to achieve orbit. During this time we realized orbit would not be possible so we changed our goal to achieve 50km and return Valentina safely. Once we passed the 50km mark, we shut off and dropped our engine after checking the map to make sure orbit was not possible (It wasn't... tears). Our pod then began the descent back to Kerbin. The parachute was deployed at 3000m and Valentina dropped safely into an ocean on Kerbin telling us that she enjoyed the flight immensely. Summary: Launch! Rocket brings us to 50km and we run out of fuel. We then return to Kerbin safely. Opportunities / Learnings: Sometimes, even if your original plan fails, you can still accomplish something great! Strategies / Project Timeline: Take into account changes in design will also effect flight. Milestone Awards Presented: 50km reached and achieved Available Funds: 187,877.20
  3. About a week ago, I walked down into the basement to check on my laundry only to find a large puddle of water on the floor. We had temporarily fixed the pump that brings the water from the basement up into the septic but it seemed to have broken again. We need pumps for appliances below our septic tanks because the water does not have the ability to move from low to high (high being the location of the septic tank; low, my basement) without an external system doing work on it. Because of gravity's natural pull downwards, water wants to go down. To go up the pump must create power to do the correct amount of work to push the water up into the septic. Without it, the water overflows the location of the pump and floods the basement.
  4. Wait... it's not really bright red?
  5. The title of this blog post is pretty irrelevant except for the fact that I will be talking about an octopus. The said octopus was won by a friend of mine for selling a bunch of a certain item for a class fundraiser (good job making those sales- woot woot!). The octopus was one of the gel forms that sticks pretty much anywhere. We threw it against the wall cabinet in the physics classroom and watched it stick for a short amount of time before it started to slide down. For a brief period of time the coefficient of static friction was great enough to hold it up against the force of gravity. Once it started to move and the coefficient was now kinetic (because things in motion are kinetic) it had a little bit of grip left to it but it continued to slide down until it dropped completely.
  6. Once upon a time, air bags were nonexistent. Now they are a standard feature in all new cars. This became a requirement for cars in 1998. When you get an accident at a high speed where the vehicle stops quickly, we know that the person inside wants to keep moving in the same direction at the same velocity as before the crash. Seat belts help to prevent the body from slamming into the wheel or flying out through the windshield. Your head can still fling forwards. The air bag deploys in order to slow the person over a longer period of time. It "catches" the head (or body) and brings it down to a slower speed over a greater period of time so the overall impulse (impulse= force*change in time) is much smaller. A higher impulse force on an important part of the body, like the head, causes injury or even death.
  7. I definitely made that mistake way too many more times after that.
  8. I own two wonderful pets, a dog, Henry, and a cat, Willow. Let's just say they... tolerate each other. As my dog has gotten in to his elder years (He will be 11 this August), chasing the cat (she's turning 5 in June) has become less interesting to him. I've noticed on the days he does decide it's worth it to get up and run after her, she is able to turn the corner a lot faster than he is. I figured this must be because of her lower center of mass. She can turn at a lot higher speed without her legs flying out from under her. My dog, on the other hand, takes longer to turn since he is much bigger than Willow. His age and his lack of control of his left hind leg due to an injury earlier in life also could contribute to his inability to catch up with her.
  9. In Orchestra today, two kids rode past our room on their scooters. After discussing why two 8th graders were getting to school late, we started reminiscing about the scooter days. Remember those Razor scooters that hurt so much when they accidentally swung into your ankles? Yeah, those scooters. So I was one of the fortunate kids to have a scooter and one memory I have of it is the day I learned you must avoid, at all costs, scootering barefoot. Oh yes, bare feet and scooters are not a good combination. I remember wheeling around my driveway and then needing to slow down to turn and head back. I stepped on the brake and all of a sudden my foot got very, very hot. I asked my parents why and they told me that brakes make things hot because of the friction it creates. Now that I'm older, I understand why this heat is created. When you step on the brakes, the friction between the metal and the wheel is increased greatly. Brakes work to bring the kinetic energy to a lower value (reduce the speed). To do so, some energy must be released. This energy is released in the form of heat which I felt on the bottoms of my feet through the metal brake at the back. So, next time you go out and scooter (don't lie to yourself... you know you want to bring that dusty scooter in the corner of the garage back out) think of the physics and enjoy scootering at a whole new level!
  10. A YouTube channel I enjoy to watch is that of The Slow Mo Guys. For those of you who aren't familiar with them, they film many different things- paint on speakers playing music, a bullet being shot through a pool of water, etc.- with high speed cameras that capture millions of frames per second. In one video, they spin a CD at 23,000 rpm (the critical spin rate of a CD) at which it begins to shatter due to the extreme forces it feels at this high rpm. They catch all of this in slow motion making it an interesting (and physicsy) watch! I've included it below. Enjoy!
  11. Popcorn is a tasty snack that has existed for many centuries. The other day I was wondering how exactly it worked and figured there must be some physics behind it. After experiencing pressure created by the temperatures it is put under, the hull of the kernel splits and turns inside out. The water vapor that is released makes the popping noise. If you have ever made popcorn in a pot you will have seen that popcorn "jumps" in the air. I figured that the release of the water vapor directs a force against the bottom of the pan. As we know, for every force there is an equal and opposite force. The force released from inside the kernel points down towards the pan and then a force is exerted back in the opposite direction on the kernel causing it to "jump" up into the air. What a great physics snack!
  12. kateh516

    Really Tall Things

    Tall things are pretty great
  13. In the English style of riding, sometimes you may notice a rider wearing extra material around their calves. These are known as half chaps (I've included a picture below for better reference). Riders may choose to wear half chaps as a way get a better "feel" of the horse and keep your leg in the proper position. The coefficient of friction is increased by riding with half chaps as most have a grippy (for lack of a better term) fabric on at least the inside of your calf. The coefficient of friction is much greater using chaps than it would be wearing jeans, breeches or any other pant. When riding the goal is to keep your shoulders, hip and heel all in a straight line from top to bottom. Half chaps aid in lessening the movement in your calves as you ride, which allows you to keep the straight line from shoulders to heel.
  14. On Easter, I had the pleasure of celebrating with a friends family (because all of my family lives in a land far, far away). Her cousins really liked playing on the tire swing they have in their yard. I don't blame them, tire swings are pretty swanky. For some reason they really liked when I pushed them. Maybe it was just because I was a new person that isn't family. Or, maybe it's because of physics. My friend and I, being the oldest kids there, ended up supervising after we ate Easter lunch. When my friend pushed them, they seemed to enjoy it but they really did when I pushed them. That's all because of potential energy and it's transformation into kinetic energy. Being 6'2" (an entire foot taller than my friend) I was able to pull them to a much higher height before letting them go. This means they had a larger potential energy as P=mgh. The height they could reach with me pulling them was much larger. Due to the conservation of energy the kinetic energy would also be much greater with me pulling them allowing to reach a larger velocity, K= .5mv^2. And when you're little, faster means more fun.
  15. I would like to start off by apologizing for the title. Sometimes I try to be punny and I should know by now I'm really bad at it. Anyways... I was on spring break this week and a group of my friends (they're some really cool people) took a day trip where we found a pretty gnarly place to take a hike. It was a pretty awesome adventure and with any adventure, there has to be physics involved. We all hiked to the top of trail but, did we all do the same work? No! Why you ask? Because work is equal to the force*displacement. We all were displaced the same amount (since we all started from the bottom and hiked to the top) but since force is equal to mass*acceleration this number would vary. We all walked up at about the same pace but we probably aren't all the same mass (I did not weigh everyone who went on the hike so if we all turn out to be the same mass I apologize). Let's at least think of each person having a different mass. Keeping acceleration and displacement constant for each hiker and changing each hikers mass would lead to different amounts of work needing to be done to get to the top of the mountain. Next time you take a hike, consider the physics behind it. It's pretty cool.
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