School!!!!

I really miss home. I think im home sick. Only in BR, Im ready to go back to central to bring this extravagating program to my school. I wonder how it feel to give other students a learning experience. I have a couple of students who are interested in getting into the course. I hope its many freshman that come along so we can pull them into this program, using our psyhic junior persuasion capabilities. I hope we can come up with an excellent experiment so we can keep on impressing Greg. Does that sound like a plan Greg.

I was just sitting here thinking about how I was going to do section 6.0 the payload construction. I'm looking over the template and they are asking me to describe our plan to go from design to launch. I think in order for us to go to the design from launch, we have to go through hardware fabrication, calibrations, and testing. The fabrication parts, are assembling the electronic components to ensure that our electronic are going to operate during flight.
Also today, I did a prototype of our payload box. It came out pretty descent, but we our going to use it to collect data from the HOBO and freezer. I have to do some thermal calculations to get a better understanding of what kinds of temperature changes that the payload is going to encounter during flight.
In HAM today, we operated a net. I was cooler then i expected. We had all these old guys running around with note cards with crazy, silly, funny messages on them, that we had to repeat. I can omit every time someone came up to me with a note card I kind of got nervous. I don't no why, just was.

Yesterday I had some ideas thrown at me about designing our payload. I had a thought process put together on how I wanted it to look on the outside and its internal structure. I had a talk with Mr. John, and he explain to me how things should be set up in the box so they are easy to get to. That conversation changed my whole prospective on how I should set things up. I going to design my new 3D diagrams drawings on solid works instead of Viso this time also. But today I guess I'm going to do a Little prototyping so I can really get an good understanding on how I'm going to design mu box. Guzik said once the design is put on paper it can not be change, so that is something I'm really going to need to think through.

Wow...I gotta take it way back. I haven't blogged since like Friday I believe, so let me start from Saturday. Saturday was field day at the Highland Rd. Observatory. We arrived at like 3:00 in the afternoon, we tried to wait for the sun to go down a little bit. Soon as we got there, we hopped on the radios. I worked to ten meter band with Ms. Ava and we sat there for hours and made no contacts. Even before I came, she said she had been sitting there since 1:00 noon and had only made 2 contacts. I think she kind of really wanted me to talk on the air, so she moved me a station over and I sat there for less the 5 minutes and made a contact in Kansas. The day continued, we ate and went on the nature walk trail. After that, we went in the small dome, and seen Saturn through the telescope again. Ashle E. wanted me to come back out with her and work the 6 meter band, That was very boring because we couldn't make contact with anyone...

Sunday......We just stayed in, and worked on our PDR and slept. Wasn't really to much to do, since we had work to do and no vehicle. We could have went back to field since it had rolled over into Sunday, but we just couldn't bare the heat.

Monday.......I can't even remember what I did Monday, I think I'm getting old...WOW.! ( Probably just worked on the PDR)

Tuesday......The worst day of my life. I got not 100, not 200, not 300, not 400, but $500 docked from my pay check. I heard 500 and heart felt like it dropped. Now we know Greg means business, (not saying we don't take you serious). The decision we had yesterday with Greg seemed very useful, because we came to the conclusion that we were going to have meetings everyday with him at 10:00 a.m. to reassure that everything in our group is going good. Both groups worked really hard together last night, by helping each other on the PDR, staying in the lab until today. We decided that we were going to try to really work harder on this project since everyone doesn't think we are putting much effort into it.

Today......We had our meeting this morning with Jim about our times corresponding with his. He knows we need on this project, so he gave us an option of being here early getting the work done, then being able to leave early when done. PDR review went well. I was actually impressed that Greg said that we had the the best science requirements written in PACER history. Along with that, we made alot of other minor mistake about vagueness and scrambled information. I think that this was the easies document that we have had to do so far. May it was easier because we had the Pre-PDR and the revision from everyone helped us put it together a little better this time around. We also won the award for best document again. Now its time for the Pre-CDR.

I hate this working in groups crap. My team members or so complicate when it comes down to hearing someone eslses ideas. Everytime i make a suggestion, somebody always have to go word for word with me, without even thinking about the suggestion I made. I have asked a question many times about, "How do you work with people that have two different points of view on things?". I am getting highly aggravated working with this group, I am trying to be a patient as possible, I even went to the extream of just let them do what they think is right. It gets crazy after that, because when I don't make any suggestions, they claim "I not helping". I have made many suggestions that could have saved us some red ink from Dr. Guzik's red pen, but no one really listen to their team member, just wants to do the work themselve, them complains.....What do I do? ( and talking to them doesn't help, bacause I tried.)

I got a English lecture, and learned more about the atmosphere. Today was our meeting with Dan, he helped us get to the point. He explained to use that he didnt know that much about the sciecnce background, but by reading a well written PDR, he should be able to do an experiment. He helped us with grammatical, punction, and other mild errors. He also made me create a list 0of things to watch out for in writing other papers., which were: being consistant with same words, capital & lower case letters. Use spaces after initialize words ( g, km, m, ect.). Also use key words and words that stand out so u just dont have a simple paper and people would want to read it. I learned a few other things based on how and hownot to use "HOWEVER with a ;".

Today we need to find out the following information about heat transfer and how it effects the atmosphere. Radition, assorption, emissivity, albedo, solar altitude, length of the day, and the heat budget all are concepts that we should consider when finding out they information that we need to no.I just found out that the sun gives off heat that is reflected on the albedo and IR, (earth) and that heat source can effect how the temperature of our payloads change. Its kind of interesting how the sources underneath the payloads have a big effect on the temperature. I'm thinking if the albedo gets taken away, the sun still gives off an reflection, but it has nothing to give its reflection off too. So I guess im going to sit here and do sum more research to get a better understanding.

Friday night was a very fun and interesting night. Dr. Jim came and picked us up, and took us to the Highland Road Observatory. We got the chance to see Saturn, the handle to the Big Dipper, A Nebula, and a dead star. We didn't make it in enough time to hear the whole lecture, but we did make the end. By us coming in at the end, I didn't get the full understanding of what was really going on at the observatory. Yesterday, we stayed in and studied some more information on the scientific background. We discussed the Ionosphere and its layers. The ionosphere is a part of the atmosphere it has three layers. The E and F Layers are displayed at night and the D Layer is displayed in the day.

As I was working on my technical background information, I was sure how format the information that I found. I didn't want to be writing to much unnecessary information, but I wanted to make everything clear. I started off by writing...
This experiment is based upon measuring temperature and pressure at different altitudes. To meet these standards, there is a certain way his experiment has to flow in order to work. First, we will design our payloads by making drawings and asking experience people for ideas. As we design our payloads, we have to consider durability and reliability. We also have to consider all the things inside the payload to re insure that things don't go wrong. Because, if you look at Murphy's Law"Anything that can go wrong, will go Wrong". Our payloads our going to be traveling to 100,000 ft. in altitude. It is going to be measuring temperature and pressure, so in order for it to be capable of doing that, we have to make sure our BallooonSat has good solder joints, all software is programed right, we have to make sure the real time clock is keeping track of time, and enough power to operate through the flight. Our group also decided that we were going to use the 4 channel external HOBO to keep track of the temperature transitions..
...This is what my thoughts were so far, I'm now working on how to formulate of my thoughts into a nice, decent document for the technical background...P.S. please feel free to comment and give suggestions on my writing.

Today we met with Colleen Fava, she had a wonderful presentation. She enlightened us on how to present ourselves and the information that we bring to the table. I'm really glad Dr. Guzik brought Colleen in to us as a resource. I think she is going to be a great assistance to us in writing our documents and helping us on our presentations. Today me and my group scheduled an appointment with Dan, who is Ms. Fava's assistant. He is a graduate student working on his dissertation. He is going to help us on are Pre-PDR, by assisting us with organization and good quality in are documentation.

Today we went over the format for our PRE-PDR. We went through a slide show of project managements and documentation. Guzik stressed to us about communicating and exchanging updates with each one another on this project. He also informed us to make contract that we have to uphold during this design. In our contracts we stated our rules, time frames, and procedures.
Tommorrow we will have to meet in the lab with the people from CxC studio. They will inform us on how we will present, talk, and do's & don't on our presentations.

Earlier today was the VHF QSO party. So everyone was kinda of excited because we thought we were going to get a chance to talk on the air, but the party was ruined. No one showed up for the party but us. We met up in room 329 and went over our scripts, they were pretty simple this time compared to last time. Dr. Browne hooked up the radios and antennas and we started to search. We sat there searching for contacts for a while, no luck. Dr. Browne later made contact with someone in Costa Rica , but I dont think that lasted for a very long time. Marvin and Professor Larry felt bad for us, so they went to their cars and got their hand held radios and made contacts with us from outside.

Today was an interesting experience. We attended the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Facility, which is a non-profit organization which helps and treats cancer patients in the area. Today we sat in for a 30 minute slide show presentation and the facility, the machinery that is used, the type of issues they treat, and mostly the science on aspects of the program. We also took a tour of the center and seen each machine and he explained to us how each machine worked and how they were made.
Also, as we were riding back to campus from the center, Dr. Guzik was kinda questioning us. He questioned us on things we need to study for about the atmosphere and getting to know a little bit more about the science we are going to need for are PDR. So im leaving the lab now from a hard, long day of studing about the atmosphere, working on the PDR, and learning a few things for the VHF QSO party tomorrow.\{HAM Activity}.

Today we amplified the difference between two voltages. We redesigned our solderless breadboards to match the schematic diagram that was drew on our activity sheet. We had to place three feedback transistors on the breadboard, and basically connect input V-A & input V-B to the amplifier to get the voltage. Today also, we had a lecture after lunch that explained to use about the limited amount of voltage, current, and power supply we basically can use. Mr. Jim also also told use what was the best kind of batteries to use, and the ones we were gonna use. Anyways tomorrow we have to meet in front on ECA to attend a tour of the Mary Perkins Cancer Center. We will be learning about medical physics and its application to human health and disease treatments. *Really looking foward to learning about the medical physics and different cancers that lives in human bodies.*

Tonight was "HAM" night. Dana invited Ava and her husband to come meet us and tell us a few things about talking over the radios. She brought us some gifts with her, which are considered as QSO cards. They have a picture of the USS Kidd, which is were she was stationed the day we spoke with her. The cards were kind of neat in the sense that, not only did they have a nice picture and information about the picture, but also information about signals she receive when we transmitted that particular day.
Dana also proved the ohms law is not always true. \\
I wonder whats tomorrow gonna bring.!

For some reason, I cant seem to go to sleep..Anyway, I just left the lab sitting there with my group members trying to come up with some ideas for our PDR..I think everything is going well so far.! But anyways, today was a nice day. We got up and ate breakfast, bummed around for a little while and decided to walk to lake. The lake was really beautiful and relaxing. We walked around, played in the sand, then i decided that i wanted to put my feet in the water and dropped my camera. I got it in just enough time to save it from being damaged. After that we went to walmart, then came back to the apartments, Ashle cooked dinner, they watched the game and I went to sleep....so this was pretty much how my day went without the labs and lectures.

Today was the USS KIDD, unfortunately,we didnt make it down to the ship, but we did get some experience of talking on the radio. We all meet in the lab & wrote scripts of what to say, and how to talk on the air. After we wrote our scripts, we took a trip down to the HAM SHACK and took turns talking on air...We all spoke with Ava, she seemed really nice & was well prepared for our hesitations...( i really got nervous when it was my turn ). It was true what everyone was saying about us freezing up and getting nervous when it actually came down to a radio being in our hands. Talking on the radio seems kinda cool, but the technique we learned today of typing seemed cooler. We also learned that you could transmitt through typing, by hooking a radio up to the computer & transmitt digitally.

Sitting in the lab, just finishing up on getting my push button switch connected to my BalloonSat............." What a Success"...
These last past couple days have really been challenging. I have been learning alot of things that are new to me , some I like & some I dont. But, Im always willing to make exceptions for things that I dont like that might give me some type of heads up or head start in life..

Just to be clear everyone.......GREG SAID.................................................................................................... "I CAN BE 2 MINUTES LATE TOMORROW BECAUSE I STAYED LATE YESTERDAY"
..I think the real reason is because he was late today..lol..!

I am use to programming in C++, but I think that the BASIC Stamp is a lot easier & a lot less complicated......This should be kinda simple.!

It is now 9:06 & Greg Guzik is late......He needs to get here....NOW.!

Today has be tragic for me......I spent hours trying to take a capacitor out of my SkeeterSat, thanks to Mike, we got it out.... but then when we put it back in the right way, the freaking thing wouldn't beep....! STRESSFUL...!!! Now im sitting here trying put my temperatures and frequency in this excel table..!
Wish me luck..!

Rule # 1. Don't INTERFERE..!
lol...If I dont remember anything from the HAM Class, I will remeber do not interfere....(Dana made that pretty clear....)
I WONDER WHAT DAY WE ARE GOING TO CHOOSE FOR THE USS KIDD.?
SATURDAY OR SUNDAY.??

Guess What.???
Dana Brown & Micheal Steward called me the "Wire Goddess".!
Today we did a practice set of soldering items to a perfboard....It was kind of cool.!
I wonder whats next.?

Man, last night I was sitting in my bed reading the HAM Radio License Manual & all of a sudden, I started to get hungry.....I wonder why the refer to Amateur radio as HAM.?

The most interesting opportunity that we experienced today was working with the light bulbs, digital multimeter, batteries and wires. I'm looking forward to seeing what is in store for us tomorrow.!

PACER...PACER...PACER..
So far the 1st day is going well.!
We have been going over the things that we will be learning & experimenting.!