Hot air balloon II

After our first hot air balloon didn't work, we're put into new group with three different new members. First I thought it was going to be hard to convince them to follow my design and listen to my thoughts first, because I'm kind of a persistent person. Afterwards they all agreed with my opinions and gave me some useful information to begin with. So we started to build the hot air balloon with five half candles and half straws as the base, using duck tape to connect the structure. However we only spent half of the class to finish what we needed for the base, later on we connected to the bag that Mohamed brought in and we're ready for testing.

This is our 2nd attempt for our hot air balloon there should be no mistakes and shall fly to the sky. In reality we failed again, this time the error should be the plastic bag again or due to the weather is too warm. The weather matters it's because of the hot air is less dense than cold air so weight less, when the cold air that is displaced weights more than the balloon, the balloon will fly to the sky. Sadly if we had a third chance to build the hot air balloon it will work for sure with all the knowledge that I've learned and experienced. 

Hot Air Balloon No.1

Hot Air Balloon No.1

With the materials provided by Mr. Chung ten birthday candle, big garbage bag and we used the left over straws from our egglander to make the balloon. We followed the sketch on the white board to start with our base design, it looks like a X shaped with excess length of straws curved on the edge to attach with the garbage bag. The total process of making the base of the hot air balloons and sticking the bag to the base structure plus fused five candles to the base evenly apart. Unfortunately our hot air balloon did not fly, I think the reason is because the garbage bag was too heavy. If we had a chance to fix our hot air balloon on the spot I would cut down all five candles by half to reduce the weight as well with the straws, therefore the whole mass of the base is reduced by half. The main problem of this hot air balloon is the bag, because we're using candles to give heat to the bag, and the birthday candles doesn't provide enough heat to flow. In this case grab one of the light recycled bag from the supermarket and attach them all together, our hot air balloon should work just fine.

Stargazing

On September 27, 2012 clear sky and A.Y Jackson BBQ night was a great day for viewing the moon with our advanced telescope that were brought by the Royal Canadian Astronomy. Thanks to them that was the first time I ever saw Mars, Jupiter and the Moon with my own eyes, I was quite impressed when I saw the moon, it looked like a giant styrofoam ball flowing in the air, but the Mars and the Jupiter were just a dot in the telescope. I have to be honest, I never look up in the sky when I walk outside, that day the Astronomies they were explaining the stories behind the stars and teaching us how to identify the stars by its location, as I remembered one of the astronomies showed us the seven sisters in the sky, the Pleiades  That was quite impressive how they can spot them easily can retelling us the story behind the star. However that night the moon was very bright and visible therefore I took a few photos though the telescope and here are the pictures that I've taken on the A.Y Jackson barbecue night.

The egglander 2.0

EggLander II It worked!

After our first egglander failed, we're put into new groups to make the second egglander with the prior knowledge of our failure. The stuff that we learned from the previous egglander was that we didn't have straws on the rare side that can protect the egg from tilting to the side resulting the egg to crack on the side.

With the new egglander we improved and fixed, the mistake that we had from the first egglander, it should be ready to go. My group member are pretty nervous about the result even though I'm confident that the lander will work. With the present that if our lander didn't work our group will score another zero for our assignment. We thought of every possible error or accident might happen during and after the drop, such as the it lands on the side or even upside down. And we're ready to drop the egglander.

The egg survived, It did not pop! the moment I drop the egglander off the 2nd floor I thought I messed up the dropping resulting the egg to break, but I heard the class shout out it survived! Our egglander shaped extremely close to an space rocket, However we did not copy the model but just somehow ending up with the similar design, and it's a great egglander.

The Egglander

                                                                 Design:

The in class assignment is to make an egg lander by only using 20 straws and half newspaper. It takes us awhile to design for the most important part of the lander, the base. That we used multiple triangles for our base so it would acted like a spring and absorb the impact for the egg, and not let the raw egg have direct impact towards the ground. After we finished with the base we cover the top of the egg with more triangles, because if we don't the egg would fly out of the container, it's a fairly simple structure for an egglander that is made out of straw. However we're concerned about the lander will land the opposite side so we added a badminton birdie like structure made out of newspaper and straws on the top. Therefore we're positive about the lander will fall the way we wanted to be.


Results: Unfortunately our egglander did not survive the landing. Due to the fact that the egglander bounced in the air and landed sideways and popped the egg from the side. Our base and the birdie on top worked perfectly as we planned, but we didn't thought the egg lander would bounce and landed on the side and cracked the egg.

Improvements:

  

To improve our egg lander I would suggest we keep the original design of the egglander and add more straws on the side and make the base bigger, therefore the egglander will still do the same thing, secure the egg from the impact and not landed on its side and crack. Another big factor that I think we failed it's because we used a half cracked egg, it was leaking albumen at the moment, because we're unprepared. I would strongly suggest to bring an healthy strong egg right on the testing date, that would greatly increase the rate of preventing the egg from cracking.