Updating

hey team, i am just taking an update on where we are.
Sara K. is going to revise our proposal from last year to fit our objectives this year and submit it to the science fair. We need to make sure that all of our paper work is in. WE ARE WABBING ON FRIDAY soooo please try to be there. We have a lot of work to do and our deadlines are the first! YIKES!

UMASS team:

I was wondering about when we can order our ballistics gels. No rush obviously whenever is convenient for you guys. Any needed information can be obtained by contacting myself or anyone else on the blog. (Sara K. has the most information on how to purchase it but any contact is good contact) So keep me updated and that would be fantastic. Thanks again for everything you guys do. It is a pleasure to work with all of you!

_Anthony

Quick question

Does anybody happen to know how many milliliters the syringe we are working with is? and maybe even the diameter of the syringe? Thanks

=Naveed

WAB MEETING

Hey guys potential WAB on wednesday???
Let me know! We need to WAB BEFORE Friday!

You had asked how to make pages on the blog...

To make a page on your blog (I assume you use blogger as well) go into:

 posting>Edit Pages>New Page> Type in your information

The next thing you have to do is go into:

Design> Make sure there is a pages gadget right underneath the "Header"> If there isn't then go into add new Gadget and search for pages> Apply to your page and you can edit however you want it to look.

I hope this helped... if not I'd be happy to try again.
Good luck

_Anthony

EVERYONE IN CAVITATION NATION

Hey guys I really need your help for getting our science fair forms in:

I need ALL of you guys (if you can) to post some answers to these questions:

A. Question or Problem being addressed:
     ideas, reasons why, what is expected to show, specific purpose of project, and TITLE

B. Hypothesis/ Engineering Goals
    statement of these ideas

C. Methods or Procedures
    chemical concentration data, ballistics gel data, have clear understanding before conducting research,
    potentially pig tissue usage, etc.

D. Bibliography
    Make note of every resource you have ever used....ever. APA format please and thank you.

THE APA FORMAT IS FOUND HERE >>> http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

PLEASE GET BACK TO ME ASAP!
thank you :]

Our Gel

Last week we finally decided on which company we want to buy our ballistics gel from. VYSE sells 250A Ordnance gel, which seems appropriate for our experiments, for $90 per 10 lb minimum order. There is a brochure about their ballistics gels on their website if anyone is interested in checking it out.

Update from Copolymer cavitation!

Okay so after finally setting everything up and having our data run and the cavitator working (some what) we realized that the critcal pressure at which the gel would cavitate or fracture was to high for our gas pressure sensor to read. So we have been brainstorming ideas about possible approaches such as creating a low pressure area to test in (a vacuum of some sort) and bringing the initail pressure down so our readings can go higher. The company says that any reading over our max. pressure becomes inaccurate. Therefore we think that starting lower is the best alternative. Any other ideas feel free to put them out there. We will bring them up at tomorrows meeting.

_Anthony

Um

I don't know if I'm posting in the right place, but other than my technological deficiency, I'm finally on the blog and I promise to show up to meetings now that I know when they are!

Plan for the week

This week, there are a few things we need to do:

- order our gel (I'm going to talk to Mrs. D tomorrow about our decision to order from VYSE)

- fix issues with the cavitator

- fill out science fair forms

- read the paper about rigor mortis (I'm halfway through it and it's great!)

We can take care of the forms as well as order the gel after school on Tuesday.

HEY GROUP!

Hey yesterday i got the cavitator working for the first sample of the copolymers given to us from Chelsea. Something interesting happened to it that I am not sure how to describe it. Since i couldn't get the program going on my calculator and i needed Mrs. Dickson in order to put it on the computer I had no data running. However I recorded that:

The whole sample itself was expanding and growing larger. As it grew the sammple become more clear and it seemed less concentrated as the material below the cavitation site. Also a tiny bubble did not occur, but rather a large bubble that expanded across the entire length of the sample. I couldn't tell whether it was a fracture or not because the sample then returned to its normal size and shape but the bubble seemed to still be in there. I place the sample back into the ice cube tray and will lookj at it later to see if the bubble healed itself.

WAB AFTER SCHOOL TODAY...so we will hopefully get more information and get this project underway!

Mentioned your focus

I met with the collaborator at the Army Research Lab that I mentioned during the last ARCH meeting.  He was excited about the focus that you guys have chosen.  If we need to, we can put you in contact with him or one of his team members in the future.  Hope everything is going well.

The Video

Funny thing is I watched that video just yesterday, I was going to bring it to the meeting but since we didnt have one... here's it is if you want to watch it.

Some ideas to consider

I found a few inexpensive options for making ballistics gel that might be effective for us to work with, as well as a list of sites and companies to reference. One of the companies, called My Spice Sage, was offering gelatin for $4.75 for a 4 oz. resealable bag (there were other size options both larger and smaller as well that I have written down). The other options I found are in my notebook, and I'll bring it to the meeting tomorrow.
Last meeting, we looked at your recipe from Mythbusters that we are planning on using-could you post it sometime? Also, I watched the Mythbusters movie on making ballistics gel, and I wrote down the major tips they gave in making the gel (I wasn't sure what info was already on the recipe). Some key ideas to keep in mind from the movie are:

• 10 parts water/1 part powder
• pour powder into boiling water while also mixing for best results
• pour slowly and make sure the granules are completely dissolved
• They said that an automatic mixer is a must, but we will have to talk about this as a group to see what is available for us to use
• the solution will foam-the cinnamon leaf oil will decrease the foaming
• keep cooled in a refrigerator or surround by ice or both
• propionic acid-preservative

As I mentioned before, I'll bring the rest of my research tomorrow in my notebook and a site I printed. I think we already have some of this information, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to post this anyway! See you tomorrow!

I figured out how to make my account work! I'm working on some research. I'll let you konw what leads I find

Updates

Today was slightly less productive than other days. I am at a stand still because we do not have to right materials to begin testing yet. However, i looked at the Lab Pro and the gas pressure sensor that we are using for our setup and i also have copies of the instructional manual.

please post any ideas that you are having.
Thanks, Anthony

Alcohol Question

Mrs. Contant has found that we were right that 1-Octanol was the same as the 2-ethylhexanol. However, the differences are small therefore we can expect similar results in our test polymers. The only thing is that, as they called it, a penetrating odor. But once we get our own ballistics we can begin testing that as well.

Nasim or anyone in the adhesion blog.

can anyone send me a link to join the other blog?
please and thank you.

Anthony Yacovone

*My dad doesnt have a pressure gauge that we can use there: any other ideas??*

GOOD NEWS!

here are some updates.....

I talked to my dad about finding an electrical pressure gauge and he is looking around in his departments for something we could use potentially.
I also found an article that discusses the correlation between mammalian muscle elasticity as rigor mortis sets in. I will be photocopying it soon hopefully (when i can print it out!) and will be getting it to you guys so we can have more information.

Keep up the research on ballistics gel and what you guys think our approach should be. I am hoping to have the software and a COMPUTER that Mrs. Dickson may be swinging for us so SHHHHH.
Hopefully testing will be underway by next week or the week after.

~Anthony