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.*