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walsh416

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Everything posted by walsh416

  1. Pre-Launch Design Release *********************** FUNDING PULLED WE ARE HEADED IN A NEW DIRECTION SHIP NOT LAUNCHED *********************** Team Name: Rivoralsh Research Available Funds: 122,281 Vehicle Name: Space Station, cosmonauts Vehicle Parts List and Cost: Probodobodyne OKTO ~ 450 Clamp-o-tron port ~ 280 Illuminator mk2 x6 ~ 600 OX-4B Photovoltaic panels x6 ~ 1800 Advanced SAS x2 ~ 2200 RCS block x4 ~1800 FL-R25 RCS tank ~ 800 Inline Clamp ~ 700 FL-800 Tank ~ 1600 Clamp-o-tron port ~ 280 TR-18A stack decoupler ~ 600 Rockomax Adapter ~ 50 Rockomax 32 tank ~ 6600 Rockomax Poodle ~ 600 Rockomax Decoupler ~ 200 TT-70 Radial Decoupler x24 ~ 16800 Rocomax BACC Booster x8 ~ 6400 Rockomax 64 tank ~ 12500 Rockomax Mainsail ~ 850 Total cost: 55,110 Design Goals: Have enough fuel and power to get into and to get a reusable refueling station Launch Goal: To put a refueling station in space Pilot Plan: Contorolling throttle and couplers and the parachute to complete the given objectives. Boosters are decoupled first, then the liquid tank, and finally the station is left in orbit indefinitely. Illustrations: none yet
  2. Launch Report and Debrief Launch Time: 13:45 2014/5/20 Team Members Present: Rozvora, Walsh Play-by-Play: Launch boosters decoupled when empty liquid fuel tank decoupled when empty Throttle second engine to full, attempt to achieve stable orbit Decouple second engine cut throttle until apoapsis is reached throttle up to achieve stable orbit orbit indefinitely isolate command module re-enter the atmosphere Deploy parachute at ~5000m, which opens at ~800 and land safely Recover parts Photographs: to follow Time-of-Flight: 1:32:16 Summary: Stable orbit achieved, safe landing, parts recovered Opportunities / Learnings: having a stable orbit Strategies / Project Timeline: moving on to new objectives Milestone Awards Presented: Stable manned orbit which begets a reward of 50,000 Available Funds: 82,781
  3. Pre-Launch Design Release Team Name: Rivoralsh Research Available Funds: 92,342 Vehicle Name: Second mk 2 Vehicle Parts List and Cost: Command pod mk 1 ~ 600 Mainsail engine ~ 850 MK-16 Parachute ~ 422 TR-18A stack decoupler ~ 600 Rockomax Decoupler ~ 200 2x Rockomax 32 fuel tank ~ 13200 Rockomax mainsail ~ 850 12 x hydraulic detachment manifolds 200x12 ~ 2400 6 x vacc boosters 6x800 ~ 4800 Total: 23,872 Design Goals: Have enough fuel and power to get into orbit and return Launch Goal: We are hoping to demonstrate safely reaching stable manned orbit and returning safely from the orbit. we expect to reach the stable manned orbit milesone. Pilot Plan: Contorolling throttle and couplers and the parachute to complete the given objectives. Boosters are decoupled first, then the liquid tank, and finally the command module is split off after complletion of the objective and parachuted to the ground. Illustrations:
  4. Launch Report and Debrief Launch Time: 13:50 2014/5/19 Team Members Present: All three group members: Rivas, Rozvora, Walsh Play-by-Play: Launch boosters decoupled when empty liquid fuel tank decoupled when empty Throttle second engine to full, attempt to achieve stable orbit Decouple second engine Fail the objective Deploy parachute at ~600m and land safely Recover parts Photographs: to follow Time-of-Flight: 6:24 Summary: Stable orbit not achieved, will try again later. Opportunities / Learnings: Moar fuel. Always. Strategies / Project Timeline: Retry with better rocket. Milestone Awards Presented: None. Available Funds: 92,342
  5. Pre-Launch Design Release Team Name: Rivoralsh Research Available Funds: 100,103 Vehicle Name: The Second Second Vehicle Parts List and Cost: Command pod mk 1 ~ 600 Rockomax 16 fuel tank ~ 1800 Mainsail engine ~ 850 MK-16 Parachute ~ 422 TR-18A stack decoupler ~ 600 Rockomax Decoupler ~ 200 Rockomax 32 fuel tank ~ 6600 Rockomax mainsail ~ 850 6 x hydraulic detachment manifolds 200x6 ~ 1200 3 x vacc boosters 3x800 ~ 2400 Total: 15,522 Design Goals: Safely transporting a kerbal to stable orbit and safely returning him. Launch Goal: We are hoping to demonstrate safely reaching stable orbit above 70km and returning safely from the height. we expect to reach the stable manned orbit milesone. Pilot Plan: Contorolling throttle and couplers and the parachute to complete the given objectives. Boosters are decoupled first, then the liquid tank, and finally the command module is split off and parachuted to the ground. Illustrations: Screenshots to follow!
  6. Launch Report and Debrief Launch Time: 13:50 2014/5/19 Team Members Present: All three group members: Rivas, Rozvora, Walsh Play-by-Play: Launch boosters decoupled when empty liquid fuel tank decoupled when empty Throttle second engine to full, achieve apoapsis above 50km Throttle down engine and decouple Deploy parachute at ~600m and land safely Recover Photographs: to follow Time-of-Flight: 6:13 Summary: Manned launch to 50km acheived. The manned launch to 50 km milestone was acheived. Opportunities / Learnings: A simple working design is just as good if not better than a super complicated one. Strategies / Project Timeline: We can to attempt to achieve new milestones. Milestone Awards Presented: Manned launch to 50km which entails a reward of 30,000 Available Funds: 70,103
  7. Pre-Launch Design Release Team Name: Rivoralsh Research Available Funds: 77,864 Vehicle Name: Second Vehicle Parts List and Cost: Command pod mk 1 ~ 600 Rockomax 16 fuel tank ~ 1800 Mainsail engine ~ 850 MK-16 Parachute ~ 422 TR-18A stack decoupler ~ 600 Rockomax Decoupler ~ 200 Rockomax 32 fuel tank ~ 6600 Rockomax mainsail ~ 850 6 x hydraulic detachment manifolds 200x6 ~ 1200 3 x vacc boosters 3x800 ~ 2400 Total: 15,522 Design Goals: Safely transporting a kerbal to 50k meters above the ground and safely returning him. Launch Goal: We are hoping to demonstrate safely reaching 50k meters and returning safely from the height. we expect to reach the manned launch to 50 km milesone. Pilot Plan: Contorolling throttle and couplers and the parachute to complete the given objectives. Boosters are decoupled first, then the liquid tank, and finally the command module is split off and parachuted to the ground. Illustrations: Pictures coming.
  8. Launch Report and Debrief Launch Time: 13:24, 5/19/14 Team Members Present: Tim Walsh Play-by-Play: Half throttle off launch pad, accelerate to 200 m/s. Decrease throttle to keep below 200m/s until at 6km. From there go full throttle. After fuel runs out, separate fuel tank from pod and parachute. When pod is 400m from ground, deploy parachute. After soft landing, recover vessel. Photographs: Photos to follow Time-of-Flight: Didn’t track, but ~00:03:00 Summary: Not many risks here, all in all a good flight. Keep it simple, stupid! Opportunities / Learnings: Simple is nice, keep it manageable. Strategies / Project Timeline: Let’s move on!! Going to go grab that 50km milestone! Milestone Awards Presented: 10km manned milestone, 20,000 in funds. Available Funds: 57,864. Lets do this!
  9. Team Name: Rivoralsh Research Available Funds: 60,000 Vehicle Name: The Boss Vehicle Parts List and Cost: Command pod mk 1 ~ 600 Rockomax 16 fuel tank ~ 1800 Mainsail engine ~ 850 MK-16 Parachute ~ 422 TR-18A stack decoupler ~ 600 Total: 4272 Design Goals: Cheap and simple, manned launch to 10km Launch Goal: Manned launch to 10km Pilot Plan: Blast full throttle up, keep it below 200m/s until over ~6km, decouple after apoapsis at 10km Pictures to follow
  10. A truer statement and video has never been made.
  11. Physics is.. so gosh darn great I feel like it and I... are fate. With a Newton here, or a Pascal there, These SI units we love and share. Whenst look for a potential mate, All emotions to physics, they equate. If the air in the room feels perhaps electric, Just know that physics isn't eclectic. A standard mix of fun and function, Studying physics fills one with compunction. Alas, alack, it is time to go, I'll need to do work, that's fo' sho'. As Bernoulli said, just go with the flow. So shine like a lumen and simply glow.
  12. Lumberjacks are big dudes. Because they are more massive than the average human, they also weigh more. This bigger weight (or, more properly, increased gravitational force) means that the must do more work to travel the same distance. Since work is directly related to force in the direction of travel, much greater forces are required. As force the second derivative of kinetic energy and the first derivative of momentum, when one increases the rate of the others will as well. As seen in the diagrams below, lumberjacks mean business. So does Ryan Gosling.
  13. Well, Michael Scott would be proud. We have finally considered all our paper and copier needs and determined that lined, microperforated notebook paper is the key. Microperforation is the strip of tiny holes punched in notebook paper somewhere between an eighth and half an inch from the spine, selectively weakening the paper to tensile forces parallel to the spine. Essentially, it's designed to let you tear out a piece of notebook paper without ripping it or otherwise destroying it. By perforating the paper, there are fewer contact points along the intended direction of tearing. This means that for a given tensile force, each little paper piece (differential of paper length? not sure that's a thing...) feels greater 'pressure.' Microperforation is a game of compromises. Perforate the paper too frequently along the intended line of tearing and it will simply rip out when a force is applied. Perforate it not frequently enough and it will be as if it isn't perforated at all. Make the holes too big and now your paper looks stupid. Too small and they are ineffective. And all sorts of other thrilling compromises. Woohoo.
  14. Lately, it seems as if everyone and their mother has a "Lifeproof" case for their iPhone. Seriously. If my mom had an iPhone she would absolutely buy one of these. The logic behind it seems to be that the average life is wet, rough, and crazy (enough said on that subject...) and that one should always use protection. For your phone. C'mon, people. But how do they work? Typically, they contain a series of seals made of a relatively malleable type of rubber. When compressed and then held in place by clasps or screws, the rubber conforms to the other surfaces, forming a watertight seal. For those of you looking to waterproof anything homebrew style (you know, waterproof a sink or a cat or a little sister just for fun), the trick is in the type of rubber, the surface it's conforming to, and the way it is held in place. The rubber must be flexible enough to meet up with the surface, but not so flexible as to deform and let water in. The surface has to be flat and straight, something it's easy to seal against. And finally, the rubber must be kept under essentially as much pressure as possible to maintain a seal. So that's it!! Post pictures of any waterproofed cats/sisters in the comments below!
  15. Ahh, sleep. Slumber. God's gift to mortals. Sleep is all about comfort. As many a mattress commercial has drilled into my head, not all mattresses are comfortable. There is a supposedly optimal point of squishiness and firmness and pillowness and sleepnumberness and weird-yoga-guy-meditating-on-a-mattress-for-no-apparent-reasonness. In short, different people like different mattresses. The generic want for a mattress, however, is relatively universal. This is due to the way gravity acts on the human body. Since we are not simply a point mass, gravity pulls on our entire body. When laying down, as if to sleep, this pulls us towards the ground. Due to the natural contours of the human body, the actual contact patch with a flat floor is relatively small, leading to high pressure areas (since pressure is inversely related to area, with a smaller area a greater pressure is produced). It is this pressure that is considered uncomfortable. A good mattress will conform to one's body, greatly increasing the size of the contact patch between human and bed. Speaking of beds and mattresses, hot damn one would be nice right about now...
  16. The earth is big and confusing, as is all the magma and magnetic and [insert another alliterative m-word here] magic that goes on inside it. To compensate for some of this magicky nature, the leap second was created. To back up a moment, there are many different time-standards in use today, all of them slightly different, and each of them quite confusing. Two of the most common are the atomic-clock based UTC, and the solar based GMT standard. As we have developed ever more accurate clocks, it's become clear that there aren't actually 24 hours (or 1440 minutes, or 86400 seconds) in each day. Though the difference is fractions of a millisecond, these inaccuracies snowball, and eventually the 'more accurate' UTC is no longer accurate and has strayed from GMT. To compensate for this straying due to variations in the earth's rate of rotation, the leap second was created. Used only when deemed necessary by observation, it has no set implementation (unlike, say, a leap year which comes every four years, except every 100 years, except every 400 years). And that's the cool part. We have no way of modelling when a leap second will be needed. There's no predictive formula or simple rule. In essence, we have no idea how to predict variations in the rate of rotation of our planet. And that's just freaking awesome. And slightly concerning.
  17. So we were touring an unnamed university's engineering department this weekend. It was pretty cool, the vibe was positive, the people were well adjusted and friendly, and all seemed well. Things took a turn for the dire as we stepped into the acoustics laboratory. Tragically, our tour guide uttered an utterly unforgivable sentence... "If I stood back to back with you inside this acoustically silent room and talked, you couldn't hear me because the sound-proofing is so great!" My first thought? "That's so cool!!" My second thought? "Wait... that's completely false, even in the most acoustically silent room around," and here's why.... His premise for the statement was that the walls reflected no sound waves, and thus by standing directly behind someone you couldn't hear them speak. False. If you stand back to back with someone in the middle of a football field and say something, they will hear you immediately. There's nothing for sound waves to reflect off of (anything that might reflect them is far enough away that the time it takes sound to travel there and back would create a noticeable lag), yet one can still hear. So basically, no, nothing will reflect off of the walls, but sound will still travel throughout the room. This is because, unlike light, sound is not line-of-sight reception dependent. One vibrating air molecule will vibrate all those around it, not just the ones in the direction of projection, and so on.
  18. Here, we'll be looking at "over center devices," for lack of a better term. Traditionally, this term is applied to the weird little hinged things in the arms of dentist chairs, where a pivot goes over the center of the mechanism, so applying more force doesn't affect the position, instead one must physically move the pivot. Instead, we'll be referring to over center devices as anything which requires a large force to get over a "hump," before remaining locked in place (think about calculator covers and how they slide on, for instance). These work by using some sort of flexible material that, with enough force, can be deformed to fit over something else. By pushing up on a calculator cover, the angled "humps" on either side transfer that into a normal force against the calculator, pushing out the sides of the cover and slipping it over, before locking it into place. Naturally, a mechanism like this is susceptible to fatigue. Typically, this takes the form of permanent deformation of the plastic or outright breakage. The first is caused by repeated use; squish the plastic around enough and eventually it begins to wear. Breakage is more rare, and typically only results from excessive force, or underclassmen.
  19. In short, friction. Specifically, its function within screw mechanisms designed to hold things in place. For me, the most apparent example of this is on dumbbells where one has to put on weight plates and then screw a ring in place to hold the plates. If the screw were "ideal," it would have no friction, which would be great except for the fact that it would no longer be a functional fastener. By screwing the ring tight against the weight plates, a force is applied pushing the ring "out." In the absence of friction, this would push the ring out and be converted to a torque by the threads, spinning the ring away from the plates. Luckily, the friction between the plates and the ring mean the ring can't spin, and the friction between the threads on the ring hold it laterally in place. More generally, screws in their traditional sense would be utterly useless without strong frictional forces holding them in place. They would lose their holding power and simply unscrew themselves as soon as a force was introduced.
  20. Welcome to our humble abode. Today, we shall perform a brief, directed discourse on the workings of the zipper. Near the turn of the twentieth century, man kind was confronted with a conundrum: how the dickens would they close the flies on their snazzy new Goldrush-era Levis? Already the button fly was becoming associated with a rebel, skater boy type of crowd, and the people were clamoring for something new! Luckily, someone came up with the zipper. Consisting of two rows of teeth, or "keys," and joined by a y-shaped slider, the zipper is a highly functional fastener. By applying a net force on the slider parallel to the keys, the slider can be moved up or down along the keys, bringing them together or pushing them apart. The interlocking nature of the keys allows them to resist tensive and shear forces. Since each key is surrounded by other keys for more than 180 degrees, any directional force can be transferred to the next successive key, and so forth. Essentially, no single key is ever subjected to an unbalanced force from stresses placed on the zipper, and as such they can stay in place.
  21. The idea of you driving into the IHS parking lot with chains on the wheels of your Crown Victoria Police Interceptor is really rather excellent.
  22. So the momentum is the same, but the kinetic energy of the two-car system moving towards each other at 20 m/s each is (2cars)[(1/2)(10kg)(20m/s)^2]=4000J. The kinetic energy of one car moving twice the speed into a wall is (1car)[(1/2)(10kg)(40m/s)^2]=8000J. Why do the collisions look the same if one needs to dissipate twice the energy of the other? Shouldn't the single car collision look four times worse than the two car collision (one car dissipating 8000J=8000J/car but two cars dissipating 4000J=2000J/car. If one dissipates four times the energy per car of the other, why do they look the same)?
  23. Ahhh. Nothing like that feeling of a thousand baby angels caressing your scalp. First used more than 9,000 years ago, the pillow is a simple, soft device that works to add comfort to any situation. In bed? Use a pillow. Walking to school? Need a pillow. Fighting house fires? Pillow! Skidding around corners in the snow? Pillows for days. Most simply, a pillow works to distribute a force over a larger area. Filled with soft materials, a pillow conforms to the shapes of the two surfaces it lies between and increases the contact patch each has. Practically, this means that instead of having ten square centimeters over which to distribute force, the object being pillowed might now have forty or fifty; a sizable reduction in pressure. Nerve cells in human skin feel only warmth, extreme temperatures, pain, and pressure. By significantly reducing the pressure on one's skin (by, say, putting a pillow underneath one's head before lying down), one can achieve much greater comfort. Also, I found this on Wikipedia while doing some pillow research. The Japanese have weird pillows....
  24. I just skimmed blog post, and it got me thinking: what are some different ways to think about electrostatics and magnetism? I always function better when I can picture things as basic, mechanical physics concepts. I make it a point to always try to draw connections between more advanced concepts in physics (say, anything and everything covered in E&M) and more simplistic concepts (you know, water and force of gravity and junk like that). Until finding a Wikipedia article on the hydraulic analogy, I had no idea that this was a common thing to do! Essentially, voltage is the difference in pressure between two points within a pipe, and current is the amount of water that flows past a point within a given time. Beyond that, electric potential is the pressure at one point within a pipe, electric charge is simply a quantity of water, and resistance is a temporary narrowing of a pipe to restrict flow. Beyond this hydraulic analogy, it's easy to draw comparisons between electric fields/magnetism and gravity. Yes, electric forces are much stronger, but they work in similar ways. They're both attractive forces that can never be seen; they are observed through their effects on other bodies.
  25. There are people who say "Snow tires aren't needed!" They'll tell you "Advances in year round tires have obsoleted them!" They might even pull the "I have all wheel drive!" These are the same people who told you heroin and AP Physics C were good life decisions. Snow tires are absolutely vital to safe and effective driving during the winter months. All season tires typically are made of hard rubber compounds and have relatively small grooves, or fillets, in them to clear water. This is excellent for summer driving: the hard rubber means they will last for many miles before needing to be replaced and works together with the small fillets to decrease rolling resistance and increase fuel mileage. Both of these traits are the absolute last thing a driver needs after it has snowed. The hard composition means the tires are more likely to spin instead of roll, and the small and narrow fillets quickly fill with snow and prove ineffective. Luckily, someone invented snow tires. Snow tires are nearly polar opposites of all season tires; their soft rubber compound and deep, chunky groove greatly improves their grip. There are also those who claim that while snow tires are good, studded tires are better. This is a bald faced lie for any surface but sheer ice. Snow tires' ability to mold to the surface increases their contact patch and therefore the amount of force they can transfer from the car to the road. The studs on studded tires vastly decrease their contact patch, forcing the entire car to rely on several small metal spikes.
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