SOLAR SAILS

How did we decide what our effort should be?

Deciding on the problem that we wanted to solve involved a lot of discussion. We had many ideas. Many of us wanted to do “travel in space” as our problem, but in that category, some wanted to focus on the time it takes to travel, and others wanted to focus on the fuel it takes to travel in space.

Will had the idea to have stations at each planet to refuel the rocket, then the spaceship would circle the planet a couple of times to get momentum, then take off. The idea was liked by everyone, but a couple people suggested that it might take a while, so with some sadness, the idea was archived.

Another problem that was introduced was life on other planets. Everyone found that problem interesting, and a few solutions were suggested, like an oxygen dome or growing enough plants to make oxygen, but no real solutions were found, so the problem was discarded.

Jovani suggested cutting hair in space as a problem, but many people did not find it enough of a problem. Space junk was another problem, but no real solution was found for this either, and not many people were interested in it.

So travel in space seemed like the best problem. We voted, and that seemed like the best problem to solve.

Then, Alexis suggested a solution that hooked us. The idea of nuclear fusion. Alexis knew a lot about it and elaborated on it. The problem was that nuclear fusion isn’t a real thing yet. Apparently, a country had been able to make it work for a millisecond, but that isn’t enough to power a rocket. So after much discussion, the idea was discarded.

Then came Paul’s idea. Solar sails, a concept that many weren’t familiar with, but soon became familiar with. The idea was just so compelling. But Paul suggested that we tweak the idea of Solar Sails and put them together with Solar Cells. Maybe we could find a way to have light bounce around inside some kind of shape of Solar Sail onto Solar Panels, which could then be converted into boost to push the rocket around. This caused much discussion. There were many questions though. How would we let the light out once we had used it all? How would we keep it from bouncing out? What shape could we make that would allow the light to bounce right into the Solar Panel?

At our next meeting, we pretty much decided on the idea. We learned a lot more about Solar Sails, but Paul told us that our idea of having the light bounce off had a major drawback: every time it bounced, it lost half of its efficiency. So, Solar Sails on its own would be more efficient. Alexis pointed out that, that solves the problem of having to let the photons out. But we had come this far with the idea, and we didn’t want to let it go.

Who Did What?

Team Directors:

• Tina Roehr and Lisa Croft

Our directors gave us a foundation and total freedom over what we wanted to focus on. They helped organize our team and made sure that everyone was included in the process

3D Printer Experts:

• Paul and Will helped the rest of the Mustangs understand the process and effort it takes to turn filament into an object

Collaborators:

• Ella and Jovani were centered around making concept ideas, taking notes, and asking a lot of questions to understand the main idea.

Communicators/Idea Throwers:

• Alexis and Aubrey were always throwing new ideas at the crew and were the main communicators with Tye and Cailyn(their siblings) since we weren’t able to work with them one-on-one.

Graphic Design Team:

• Cailyn and Tye are our amazing 5th graders who have been very busy designing our logo and website. We have no idea what we would have done without them.