Blog!!!!

Im very dissapointed in myself, I hope im able to pass the test next week. i wont give up if i dont pass. I will make sure i have my license before i go to central. Cant wait for palestine

This sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!

I failed the test twice, i dont understand how everytime I take the practice exam I pass. What seems to be the problem. But on the other hand almost time for FRR, and I didnt realize that I have to get all these programs done to do testing before the document is due, because thats whats required in the FRR. Thanks GUZIK for making the scheduling so tight. Thats ok GUZIK it will be done today....

And the winner is?

Who is the winner of the blog? Is it me? Is it me? Do a runner up get a prize as well? I need to get my second prize dang cayla takin up all the winners spots.
And the winner is??????????????????????

Going back to Central!!!!

When we go back to school im going to be very excited about teaching new students, and trying to attract new students to learn about balloning. It really is a good learning experience. My favorite phrase that i willl annonce all the time is FIGURE IT OUT!!!!..... oh how many times i hear that phrase a day. I wonder what new experiment we will try to do. It seems its going to be alot of fun, maybe i can use the time circuit that I won from the last blog. That would be a good tool to use...

Everybody blog!!!!

EVERYBODY EVERYBODY EVERYBODY BLOG!!!!! everyone keep sayin make sure u blog today make sure u blog today. What's the big suprise? But anyway its so much to do in so little time. Constructing a CDR presentation, making sure our document was better than the last one, and our defense all less than a week from today. Our team is functioning much better than 2 weeks ago, much much team work. Hopefully today I can get started with the calibrations with Ashle but in the mean time I can go over what I have done so far and get a better understanding of the ground software. I know so far from the Basic Stamp Editor we will extract the data collected from the data EEPROM and extract it into a file using the program Term 232. From there we can put our data into an Microsoft excel file. But the data extracted is only temperature, pressure, and a time stamp. Our experiment is measuring temperature and pressure vs. altiutde, so where do we get the altitude from. Well the beacon on the payload will record altitude along with a time stamp in UTC time. a program will be given to us to retrieve the altitude data ( what a relief, I dont have to write that program). So then we can input the data into excell and make plots using science conversions.
Wow I just learned most of this this morning in a meeting, lol I didnt think my memory was that good.

Getting ready for the CDR!!!

6.3 Flight Software Implementation and Verification
In order to implement the flight program, the Basic Stamp Editor programming language will be used. A main loop is needed in order to continuously record data and time stamps. Data from the temperature and pressure sensor will be read through the ADC channels. To read the sensors a subroutine for reading from the ADC has been implemented, as well as a subroutine for writing the data to the data EEPROM. A time stamp will also be written to the data EEPROM using the same subroutines. IF ELSE/ THEN statements have been created to check for memory space and free address availability. These checks will prevent the flight software from writing over any data in the case of a power failure. When memory is full, the program will stop writing to addresses and enter into an endless loop. In order to be certain that the software runs properly, we will, run the pre-flight, in-flight/ADC testing and post-flight programs. We will place the BalloonSat, while running the flight software, in conditions similar to what it will face in the troposphere, tropopause and lower stratosphere. Temperatures approaching -70oC and pressure approaching 4mb. If the flight program runs and produces reasonable data during vacuum, thermal, and shock test it will be approved for flight.


7.3 Data Acquisition and Analysis Plan
7.3.1 Ground Software
In order to appropriately retrieve the data that was collected by the flight software, the post-flight software will need to initialize the data EEPROM’s address to zero and read back the raw data from the memory The Basic Stamp Editor programming language must be used to run the post-flight software. The program Term 232 will be used to retrieve the data off the Basic Stamp programming editor to be further analyzed in Microsoft Excel. During flight the mini SD card inserted into the camera will have collected data as well. We will retrieve the mini SD card and insert it into a laptop containing a SD slot, retrieve the pictures and download them into windows movie maker.

7.3.2 Ground Software Implementation and Verification
In order to implement the ground software, the Basic Stamp Editor programming language will be used. A main loop is needed in order to continuously read data from the data EEPROM and format the data. IF/ELSE THEN statement will be implemented to check to see if any more addresses have been written to. This loop will continue until all filled addresses have been read. In order to be certain that software runs properly, we will first run the pre flight software to write “FF” to all the addresses, second we will run our flight/ADC testing program through vacuum, thermal, and shock test to collect data and write to the data EEPROM. Third we will run our post flight program to read back the data collected. We will then verify that we can take our data off the Basic Stamp editor and import it into the program Term 232 and plot the data into Microsoft Excel, once all these test are complete our ground software will be approved.

The new sections I have done in the CDR template... I started to get confused about the ground software. Am I going in the rite direction? Please comment!!!!

This week!!!!

This week we had the PDR review on wednesday. We actually stayed the nite in the lab to ensure that we met our deadline. I can honestly say that it was worth it since we didnt get such a bad crash like we did in the Pre PDR. Im very proud of both groups. Moving up to the Pre CDR, I must make such a detailed flowchart. What a headache? This programming isnt going to be so bad since this flowchart states all the specifics.. Good luck to both groups for next week!!!!

Help!!!

3.1 Mission Goal

The goal of this project is to verify the U.S Standard Atmospheric Model for altitudes up to 100,000 ft through the collection of temperature, pressure, and visual appearance using an instrument carried by a sounding balloon launched from Palestine, Texas.

3.2 Objectives

The objective of this project is to fly a payload at 100,000 ft to photograph, measure, record, and retrieve temperature and pressure in order to compare and verify with data to that obtained by the National Weather Service (NWS) site at Fort Worth.

3.2.1 Science Objectives
In accordance with the mission goal, the science objectives include:

• Determine the variability in temperature of the troposphere, tropopause, and stratosphere during the last week in July from 2005-2008
• Determine the variability in pressure of the troposphere, tropopause, and stratosphere during the last week in July from 2005-2008
• Compare data collected from the sounding balloon to the U.S Standard Atmospheric Model taking into account with temperature, and variability in Palestine, TX, during the last week in July.
• Determine if there are any distinct land masses beneath the sounding balloon, which will affect albedo.

3.2.2 Technical Objectives
In accordance with the mission goal, the technical objectives include:

• Measuring data from a temperature sensor.
• Measuring data from a pressure sensor.
• Measuring temperature and pressure up to an altitude of 100,000 ft.
• Including an imaging instrument capable of taking photographs.
• Develop a payload for a balloon flight.
• Complete PDR, CDR, and FRR.

Is this a better flow of the goal and objectives.... please comment...

LIGO!!!!

LASER INTERFEROMETER GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE OBSERVATORY!!!!
LIGO will detect the ripples in space-time by using a device called a laser interferometer, in which the time it takes light to travel between suspended mirrors is measured with high precision using controlled laser light. Two mirrors hang far apart, forming one arm of the interferometer, and two more mirrors make a second arm perpendicular to the first. The two arms form an L shape. Laser light enters the arms through a beam splitter located at the corner of the L, dividing the light between the arms. The light is allowed to bounce between the mirrors repeatedly before it returns to the beam splitter. If the two arms have identical lengths, then interference between the light beams returning to the beam splitter will direct all of the light back toward the laser. But if there is any difference between the lengths of the two arms, some light will travel to where it can be recorded by a photodetector.
This is really amazing to be able to detect gravitational waves and to make a device that tries to avoid all other noise. I really enjoyed the video I watched today.
ASHLE EVAN EASLEY IS BLOWIN ME!!!!!!

Pre PDR Review

Wow, I got through this day it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, everyone knew neither groups would be perfect. Im now finally understanding what exactly what is expected instead of just measuring temperature and pressure, we need to come up with an science an experiment just measuring temperature and pressure is not an science. Our group needs to figure that out by tomorrow. There's no way we can have a firm science and technical background along with objectives and requirements without having an experiment.

As of now im working on revising our Pre PDR, so we can move onto the PDR. Im puttiong our references in the right format. I have encountered a problem though. What am I suppose to do when I have visited a website that has absolutely no iformation as regards to the author or publish date etc. What do I do?

Revision!!!

Going over our Pre PDR with Jim has really helped our group a lot. We where able to take the information he gave us and understand more on how the process of this PDR really is. We were kinda going into too much detail, now we know that everything is pretty much in sequence. Once you have a solid goal you will be capable of writing your objective, followed by your science objectives, leading to your technical objectives and so on and so forth.

Some more useful information that I have found was that the Ionosphere has three layers within itself. At night the E layer and F layer are present. During the day, a D layer forms and the E and F layers become much stronger. Often during the day the F layer will differentiate into F1 and F2 layers.

How much will I learn during this program?

Timeline and Milestones

When the girls, Dr. Morris, and Sinhah went to the observatory, I stayed in my room reviewing all the lectures of the electronics section along with working on the Pre PDR. The timeline and milestones part of the Pre PDR is so confusing, I made a gant chart but im not sure if its correct. Im being told that I dont include the milestones into the chart but I believe that I do. What should I do? As the group decided that we should just do it to the best of what we understand and just figure it out. No matter what Greg along with the other stuff are going to have feedback regardless so I will just be prepared. Hopefully, where ready to move onto the next MILESTONE....

All for SELF!!!!

This afternoon will be the end to early morning lectures, now it is up to the team to make sure we are on track. Consisting of being very organized and precise on exactly what we have to accomplish within the duration of the summer. Meeting deadlines and cutting down slack time as Greg would say. As a team we need to put more effort into being a better group complimenting one another and being supportive to one another as well as being able to communicate with one another so there is no confusion on the task at hand.
As a partnership effort and communication is very key to being productive. Getting the WBS and Risk Management documents completed will be very helpful on keeping track with our deadlines, these documents are very critical. Thereafter are group should come along alot better.

A long night!!!

As before I said the group was having issues about how to format our entity our document. As of now i thought the best thing that I can do for the team was just to leave my opinion out and go with the other option so there wont be any complaints, If there so happen to be a revision by our team leader or Dan then that will also be helpful. Yesterday after ham radio lecture, I stayed in the lab to do more research and found out more information about the science background. Learning about the ionosphere and the aurorae. I found out that the ionosphere is not considered a layer but is the lower part of the thermosphere. Also that the exosphere and the ionosphere make up the thermosphere. I found alot of other useful information and more to gain....

Jun 18

As of now I'm more so focused on the structure of writing our Pre-PDR. Understanding the proper layout and structure of the document. There is some miss communication within the group on how this document should be structured. Things in which some group members feel that as we go into a specific topic for example the Science background should be in a seperated paragraphs for each layer that we discuss. Other members will feel as that as long as all the information is in a good flowing sequence then it should not need to be paragraph seperated. How do we come to a resolution? The early morning lectures gave me some few pointers on how to come about this issue. As a group we discussed our issue to Dan and he gave us some good pointers, we also scheduled a meeting with him next week.

My Technique!!!

Using the basic stamp programming languange I was capable of programming LED lights, ADC chip, and the EEPROM chip. To me basic stamp is a imilar version of C++ programming language. To program the LED lights I simply wrote a condition statement that cuts on the lights, pauses for a second then cut them off, I have many versions of programming the lights for different time intervals to how many times they actually blink in a condition statement. The EEPROM chip is an important factor because this is the chip that controls other chips on the board. The ADC chip is an serial data chip which means it reads and writes to the EEPROM to store data. Just more condition statements and flag variables, pins and constants. Now I have accumlated a flight program example code that writes to the EEPROM and then reads it back out. All I need now is all the factors I need to create a program for our specific ballon sat. There wasnt many problems that I encountered since I love to program and what knowledge I gained was a new programming language.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A new beginning

Sensors and Signal Conditioning:
On the solderless breadboards we made a skematic to check for pressure. This is a good experiment considering the fact that we will need to measure pressure with respect to altitude as we fly our payload. Now I have a general idea how to measure pressure.

Well, I haven't wrote on my blog in so long, I have accomplished more tasks, such as programming LED lights, EEPROM chip, and the ADC chip, with my partner in crime Ashle, did a lil bit of communicating using the ham radio and current ly working on programming the clock.

2nd Day

Wow what an amazing day. My first hands on experince learning how sauter to making my first skeeter sat. At this very moment im still working on it but it will get accomplished. Such motivation that I have, ok now have to get back to work.

Discussion

Today was an Interesting first day. I learned that 100,000 ft is equivalent to 99% out of the earth's atmosphere. During our payload launch it travels approximately at 1000 ft per minute. This is some basic knowledge given to me by Mr.Guzik.
During the afternoon session I gained knowledge about Ohm's law. Which is P = I * V, once again more basic knowledge that I've gained along with other key points.

Welcome to Pacer

Have a fun learning experience.