Thursday, April 30, 2015

Rocket Launch

The weather was clear, but windy on launch day.



Tosha, our day team leader passed out the rockets we had built on Monday.































The campers each placed their rocket on the launch pad.









The team waited behind a glass protection wall during the launches.





  One by one, the campers were called to launch their rocket.














Mission # 2

During Team Atlas's second shuttle mission, the students from our school were assigned to Mission Control.









Eddie was the Flight Director.   He was in charge of all the other controllers of the mission.  Eddie had to ensure that the other members of Mission Control were doing their jobs correctly.

The headphones were not used for our mission, but Eddie enjoyed modeling them.

Cameras located in Mission Control, on the ISS and in the Orbiter will enable our students to communicate using American Sign Language and messages written on white boards.








David was the EECOM - Electrical, Environmental and Consumables Manager.  His job was to monitor the fuel levels, cooling systems, electrical systems, cabin pressures, lighting, etc... on the shuttle during the mission.





















John was the GNC - Guidance, Navigation and Controls Systems Engineer.  He had the task of monitoring all vehicle guidance, navigation and control systems.




Lunar Base

Team Atlas spent two sessions designing a Lunar Base.  They were give 10,000 points to use for supplies.  The team worked together to plan what the science goals of their lunar mission would be and to build a colony which would accomplish those goals.  The team had to build their colony and estimate the cost of each item needed.  


The team then had the task of presenting and selling their lunar base design to three other teams.  After their presentation, a space camp presenter asked the team to clarify some specific information.  The students also submitted an itemized list of the supplies needed for the colony. 



Team Atlas did an amazing job with their presentation and showed confidence when asked to clarify specific details about their lunar base.

Team presentations will be judged and the team with the best design will receive a special certificate at graduation.




The Robot Zoo



The Space and Rocket center has an area dedicated to traveling exhibits which change throughout the year.  The exhibit now on display is called The Robot Zoo.  



The 5,000-square-foot exhibit reveals the magic of nature as a master engineer. Eight robot animals and more than a dozen hands-on activities illustrate fascinating real-life characteristics, such as how a chameleon changes colors, a giant squid propels itself and a fly walks on the ceiling.

The larger-than-life-size animated robots include a chameleon, a rhinoceros, a giant squid with 18-foot tentacles and a platypus. Also featured are a house fly with a 10-foot wingspread, a grasshopper, a bat and a giraffe whose head and neck alone stretch 9 feet tall.  

Cutaways expose the animals' insides as a host of easily recognizable machine parts and gadgets, such as shock absorbers and pumps, that demonstrate what makes animals work. By comparing anatomy, environments and size of the actual creatures to the mechanic counterparts, The Robot Zoo provides fantastic new insights and hands-on fun for discovering just how animals work.















At The Robot Zoo, the students had time to explore the biomechanics of complex animal robots.  They were able to discover how real animals work.















This was an neat exhibit on camouflage.


Here's Eddie!                                           Now you see him,                            now you don't!