High-Level Project Summary
We developed an easy-to-understand, cost effective and an innovative lesson-plan. We put special effort in choosing the most durable and low cost materials and equipment needed to build the HAB. When possible, we provided alternative ways to procure the equipment needed. For example, we offered the possibility of 3D CADding certain components like the launch release and the parachute deployment system. We planned and talked about how to implement an effective control system (sensor + DAQ + computer to systematically retrieve data from sensors. Finally, we kept safety as our top priority criteria and made sure the instructions help students build, launch and recover the HAB safely.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Our product is a creative, attractive and efficient lesson-plan presented in the form of a how-to-do booklet with images designed by ourselves to illustrate critical aspects of the building and launch process. The booklet first gives the theoretical foundations of designing a high-altitude balloon referring to Newton's laws, buoyancy force, drag, etc. Then, a descriptive list of materials with prices were listed is presented for students to get all they need to start their project. After that, we give technical details with safety measures about how to successfully conduct the launch, tracking and recovery of the HAB. So, we hope that our product gives students a clear know-how on how successfully complete their project. Since every aspect is scientifically explained, the reader will know the use of everything we recommend them to do and will also have a complete picture of how demanding, ambitious and rewarding the project would be. The booklet was created in team of 2 (Mech Eng student + Software Engineering Student) in Publisher. We developed a detailed plan and structure of our booklet on paper and then wrote the main script/text on word and finally organized everything in Publisher with images. We also used PowerPoint to design our logos, presentations and images.
Space Agency Data
We used all the resources provided. Our project was a booklet where we incorporated the lesson-plan and the bill of material. We learned from the resources provided and did our best to transmit the information to help students make their own High Altitude Balloon.
For example, one of the resources was explaining the different types of balloons. Among them was the zero pressure balloon which is one of the most common one. We then drew knowledge we gained from previous physic classes to explain out the concept to the reader. We did this again with the concept of buoyancy to explain the impact of helium when used to make a balloon float.
A lot of the material and components that make a High Altitude Balloon were taken from the resources provided such as helium being the most used gas for the balloons and the cheapest option as well.
We also used the resources provided to compare different types of balloons. The comparisons allowed us to choose which balloon we will discuss and justify why we made this decision.
Hackathon Journey
While writing the lesson-plan, we had the opportunity to apply the concepts and theory we learned in class to a real-word problem. It was satisfying and gratifying to work on engineering challenge that had so much relevance to our field of study. We primarily learned how every concept could be applied to enrich our design ideas for the technologies and mechanisms we taught how to integrate. As Richard Feyman once pointed out, it's when you teach something that you actually master it. When writing this lesson-plan, a lot of simple questions that we never asked popped out . It helped to think critically about the material we learned in class. It's the complexity beyond the simplicity of project that inspired to choose this challenge. In other words, the simplicity of the challenge allowed us to to explore complex ideas and concepts that we eventually implemented in an understandable way in the lesson-plan. What we appreciate the most in the project is the space for creativity we had to explore original ideas. Our approach was pretty straight forward : get in the skin of an excited young student interested in building low-cost HAB and write a lesson -plan that supports and excites him throughout the project. Our main challenges were about dealing with competing constraints. For example, sometimes, cost was competing with efficiency but we eventually overcame the challenges through detailed analysis of every pros and cons in a team discussion. We want to thank NASA for offering us such a great context to apply our knowledge and explore our skills. Thank You !
References
We used all the resources provided in the project tab section.
We used Publisher, Word and Powerpoint to make our booklet and demo.
Furthermore, we used the following three sources that were outside of those provided:
SPACE Race Stem. “High Altitude Balloon Bill of Material (HAB BOM)” 5 January, 2016. https://launchwithus.com/lwu-blog/2016/01/05/high-altitude-balloon-low-cost-bill-of-material-hab-bom
SPACE Race Stem. “High Altitude Weather Balloon Laws and Regulations ” 21 January, 2016. https://launchwithus.com/lwu-blog/2016/01/05/high-altitude-balloon-low-cost-bill-of-material-hab-bom
High Altitude Science. https://www.highaltitudescience.com/pages/how-to-inflate-a-weather-balloon
Tags
#altitude #balloon # software # launch # tracking #recovery
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.