Rocket Project Success

Many of you know this already, but the rocket project has been carried out EXTREMELY WELL by our team. Their official competition launch was successful and came within 86 feet of the target altitude of 2000 feet. One test launch (over at the launch site in Madison County run by the NFCC Sentinel Rocket Club) had reached 2900 feet, so the rocket was capable of much more than the competition demanded.

This was the only non-hybrid rocket, so it was guaranteed to win its class. However, I was particularly pleased to read the following in the e-mail from the director of the competition:

... we had 6 teams competing in the hybrid competition and your team was the most consistent with your reports and you were closer to 2000 ft.

I believe that means our team would have won an "open" competition against the teams launching hybrid rockets! As I said above: you did an EXTREMELY IMPRESSIVE job.

By the way, team members, don't think that detail about "most consistent with your reports" is a minor compliment. Teams have won major national competitions (like the concrete canoe race in civil engineering or some of the robot competitions in mechanical or electrical engineering) because their documentation and project presentation took top marks over a team that was slightly better in what they thought was the main competition. Being tops in both metrics (consistent reporting and hitting the target altitude) is a real triumph.

Laser pointer danger

I told one of my classes this semester about the availability of Class IIIb laser pointers (at a non-trivial cost) and their legal use for pointing out stars - and the serious risk of a felony conviction if they are misused.

Today I saw an article from the BBC about a police helicopter equipped specifically to detect, locate, and arrest persons who point such devices at aircraft that includes video of a demonstration. You can see the dangerous effect of the laser in an aircraft cockpit as well as the use of FLIR (infrared vision) to track the perpetrator. Side links to earlier articles indicate that misuse of these lasers has been a growing problem in the UK over the past year or so.

Update: Electric Cars

One of my students told me the electric car show yesterday was excellent. Among other things, he got to see a Tesla Roadster!

The Tallahassee Democrat has a photo gallery from the event. (Yep, there he is in two of the photos.) I've seen the plug-in converted Prius (pictures 5 and 6) around town, but only heard about the Dodge Caravan last Friday. Now that is a serious bit of home-brew car conversion!

SPACE - - - THE LAST FRONTIER

IF YOU CLICK ON IT, THEN IT WILL GROW ON YOU!
DJ

Electric Vehicle Event (April 7)

Attention Solar Cart workers!

The Tallahassee Area Electric Vehicle Association (taeva.org) and Electric Auto Association (EAA) are having a special event in conjunction with a TAEVA chapter meeting on Tuesday, April 7, at 3 PM.

There will be hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and all-electric vehicles (including locally built conversions) on display, but the real attraction is the Spirit of FC plug-in hybrid that is on a tour of all US state capitals. That link takes you to the blog describing the tour. Today (April 3) they are on their way to Birmingham, Alabama, then on to the capital in Montgomery before heading to Tallahassee.

The meeting location, at the Tallahassee city "Fleet Management" center (400 Dupree St), is convenient to TCC so it would be easy to go over there after class on Tuesday afternoon. TAEVA has a map showing the meeting location on its website. Dupree is halfway between Appleyard and Mabry, south of Pensacola.