Daily Archives: February 11, 2016

Lego Mindstorm Experiment

Goal and Object

The goal of this activity is studying about Newton’s second law of motion. During the activity, we had been exploring the Newton’s second law, the law of conservation of energy, velocity and acceleration, and power.

For the experiment, we had to use  Lego Mindstorm motor to lift weights, a pulley, and the masses.

 

Experiment process

  • Plug the USB cable into Lego Mindstorm motor and computer
  • Balance the motor and masses through a pulley
  • Then we measure the height from the bottom the the top of pulley. The height is 31.6 cm = 0.316m
  • Set up a table for 2 tests; 5 times for each.
  • Open the program in Window software and begin to add number
  • Press Start to run the motor
  • For the 1st test, we use the same force with different masses. We chose 50 N for the force, one after another, 0.25 kg, 0.23 kg, 0.21 kg, 0.15 kg, 0.1 kg. Next, we calculated the Potential Energy = mgh. Then we come up with this result

 

m1c1                         m2c2

 

 

  • For the 2nd test, we use the different force, 100 N, but in the same masses as the test one from the small to large, 0.1 kg, 0.15 kg, 0.21 kg, 0.23 kg, 0.25 kg. Also, we used the same equation for Potential Energy. After that, we come up with the result like this.

m1c2                              m2c1

 

Also, this is a picture and video that show how the process works

20160205_123224

 

Conclusion

Even though we can collect all the data in this experiment, we though that there would be some mistake because the graph is really weird on the second test. Nevertheless, this activity helped us to learn about Newton’s second law and how to use equation to apply in the experiment.

 

 

SpaceX

What is SpaceX?

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, as known as SpaceX, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport service company in California. SpaceX was found by Elon Musk, an American business magnate, engineer and inventor. His main goals are reducing global warming through sustainable energy production, and reducing human extinction by search for a colony on Mars. That is why SpaceX was built.

 

Goals

The main goal of SpaceX is inventing a kind of rocket that can bring human into the space and come back with the intact rocket. Also, the “ultimate goal is enabling people to live in another planets.” (SpaceX).

 

What is the difference between NASA and SpaceX?

NASA: sending rocket into the space then breaking out itself. Only the satellite will stay in the universe after the rocket break out and explode in the space.

 

SpaceX: the rocket is designed with 2 stages. When it comes into the universe, the 2nd stage will break out and falling while the 1st stage still flying up. After that, the 1st stage will break out and the top of it is the satellite. However, when the 2nd stage is falling, it still have energy and power to launch. After finishing the process, the 2nd stage will returning to a landing zone (R) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force. The company said that exploding the rocket in the space is very expensive so they tried to invent a product that can launch into the space and return back to the Earth.

These two picture is showing how the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket works.

 

maxresdefault                      Preview SLS

 

Also, there is a video that show from the beginning to the and of the flight. The SpaceX rocket launched into the universe, then broke out and return to the land zone. The video had been recorded by SpaceX even though the rocket was in the universe. All the members of company were happy for what they achieved.

 

 

Conclusion

SpaceX had done a wonderful project that help we having more hope about finding the living in universe. We still believe that there is someplace in the universe where the human can live on it, and SpaceX is doing what we want to do in some day.

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Reference

http://www.spacex.com/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/12062912/SpaceX-succeeds-in-historic-in-rocket-launch-and-landing-live.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANv5UfZsvZQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX