Thursday 20 June 2013
On Thursday we started out by dropping our planetary landers (piloted by eggs) from the top of the 50-foot-tall Physical Sciences Building. I haven't tracked down any photos of the event yet; I will try to post some later today if possible. My favorite memory is the first drop, where everything went smoothly until just after the landing. After touch-down the egg pilot apparently hit the ejection button, leading to its unfortunate demise! The success rate was 8 out of 16 in terms of delivering an egg safely to ground.
Next we spent a couple hours refining our paper rockets and then launching them. We launched at three different angles: 30, 45, and 60 degrees. We later analyzed the launch data through graphing and showed that the maximum distance was obtained for launch angles of 45 degrees, confirming our original hypothesis. After lunch the campers learned more about the challenges to human spaceflight (how to eat, go to the bathroom, how much oxygen is necessary, etc.). The day finished with preparing for our adventure to the nearby Snowy Range where we will explore different environments and take soil and water samples to be later tested for signs of life.
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