Micro Air Vehicle Club Outreach Program

Fall 2015 Semester:

September 19th - October 24th, those 6 Saturdays from 9 am - 1PM

at Arizona State University.

Spring 2016 Semester (New Students):

February 20th - March 26th , those 6 Saturdays from 9 am - 1PM

at Arizona State University.

We will be working with the 7th/8th/9th grade (~approx. 15 students for each semester). 

We need practicing engineer women to help as group leaders for the students.

We need is for them to show up and we will provide all the resources and bird kits and materials to accomplish the tasks. Here is attached a template for the Micro Air Vehicle NASA Outreach Club project. If you are interested we need to know so we can add you to the poster. We will be working with Superior Jr./Sr. High School. Here below is the tentative schedule of activities.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES 

Link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs

Week 1: link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/week-1-mav-outreach-club

9:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Introductions / Begin Building Mechanical Bird

Take Survey, Link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/survey-mav-outreach-program

10:30 AM – 10:40 AM: Snack

10:40 AM – 11:30 AM: Use the 3D - pen to design next Blue Mechanical Bird

11:30 AM – Noon: Build a tower from milk cartons.

Noon – 1:00 PM: Pizza

Week 2: link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/week-2

9:00 AM – 9:30 AM: Measure distance with the ruler in inches, centimeters and millimeters from the milk carton tower. Find out the relationship between all the measure units (e.g. x_mm = 10*x_cm).

9: 30 AM – 10:20 AM: Run the program 1-Blinking an LED and do the activities at the end.

10:20 AM – 10:30 AM: Snack

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM: Run Program 2-Reading Distance with an Ultrasonic Sensor and do the activities at the end.

11:00 AM – 11:15 AM: Quiz 1: How to plot data?

link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/quizes

11:15 AM - Noon: Test / Collect data on Micro Air Vehicles

Noon – 1:00 PM: Pizza

Week 3: link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/week-3

9:00 AM – 9:15 AM: Take 2nd Survey

Link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/survey-mav-outreach-program

9:15 AM – 10:00 AM: Begin Building Arduino RoboCar

10:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Quiz 2: How to Measure Performance of the data collected?

link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/quizes

10:30 AM – 10:40 AM: Snack

10:40 AM – 11:30 AM: Run the program to set up the speed of motor wheels and do the activities at the end.

11:30 AM – Noon: Plot the speed calculated from the robot running versus the speed setup in the Arduino program.

Noon – 1:00 PM: Subway

Week 4: link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/week-4

9:00 AM – 9:30 AM: Use Matlab Engineering Software to answer questions /Confirm students calculated answers.

Link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/matlab-trajectory-code

9:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Print off Students Plots /Evaluate the best performance vehicle based on height

10:00 AM – 10:30: Begin Developing Poster.

Link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/demo-poster-for-science-fairs

10:30 AM – 10:40: Snack

10:40 AM – 11:40 AM: Keep Working Poster

11:40 AM - Noon: Finish Poster

Noon - 1PM: Subway

Week 5: link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/week-5

9:00 AM – 9:50 AM: Practice Poster - First round

9:50 AM – 10:05 AM: Decorate Arduino Robocars

10:05 AM – 10:30 AM: Prepare program and do the obstacle avoidance competition

10:30 AM – 10:40 AM: Snack

10:40 AM – 11:30 AM: Practice Poster - Second round

Noon – 1:00 PM: Subway

Week 6: link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/week-6-1

9:00 AM – 9:15 AM: Take Final Survey

Link: https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/michael-thompson/outreach-mavs/survey-mav-outreach-program

9:15 AM – 10:15 AM: Practice Poster - Final round

10:15 AM – 10:30: Snack

10:30 AM – 11:30: Final Presentations to Parents/ Professional Engineers

11:30 AM - Noon: Awards / Certificates

Noon – 1:00 PM: Subway

Reserach Work in the REU at the University of Alabama-weekly News Bulletin 

Weekly Outline of the Mechanical Flapping Bird NASA Outreach Program

Week 1 Project - Designing/ Modeling Mechanical Flapping Wing Bird Micro Air Vehicles

The main goal of this project is to design a mechanical flapping bird. This will help students to become familiar with issues associated with modeling, designing, and building a flapping wing mechanical bird micro air vehicle (MAV) drone. The topic addresses drawing shapes and sizes of birds and getting familiar with their dimensional configurations. Studying the aerodynamics of flight can be an arduous task for kids, but it is essential for determining the distance and velocity the bird micro air vehicle performs during a typical flight mission. This motivates the topic for designing a mechanical bird. The first step is to design a mechanical bird micro air vehicle. Students will examine shapes and sizes of different wings and fuselage to determine maximum distance and velocity by altering the dimensions of different shaped mechanical birds. The students will gain mechanical and aerospace engineering skills from working together to design more efficient types of flapping bird wing configurations to produce the greatest amount of lift and least amount of drag from learning aerodynamic concepts with practicing engineers they interact with. The students will design their own mechanical birds. This will enable the students to have their drawings/design come to life and put their designs to the test to see how much lift their mechanical bird can achieve.

Week 2 Project - Building Flapping Wing Mechanical Bird Micro Air Vehicles (MAV)

The main goal of this project is to build mechanical flapping birds. This will help students to become familiar with issues associated with modeling, controlling, designing, and building a flapping wing mechanical bird micro air vehicle (MAV) drone. The first step is for the each group to build and test 2 mechanical flapping birds and compare them. The platform that the mechanical bird uses is a premade balsa wood structure with red and blue wings. The body of the mechanical bird was easy to put together. The structure will be premade with precut holes for mounting parts and pieces that can be easily integrated together. Students will examine various flight regime paths. The students will conduct experimental tests to determine the mechanical bird vehicle’s performance. The students will gain mechanical engineering skills from building and designing their own mechanical birds learning from practicing engineers. The students will work together as a team to achieve their goal and build the two mechanical flapping birds that fly. The students can exploit development of load carrying capacity capabilities for their MAVs. This will enable vehicles to deliver a payload or be attached with cameras and complete search and rescue missions. The students will have planned to take measurements from the ASU Wind tunnel during the semester.

Week 3 Project - Testing / Experimental Velocity Data Collection of the vehicles

The main goal of this project is to test and collect data of the mechanical birds that the students built. Each group will fly mechanical flapping birds. We will have cohorts that consist of 3-4 students. The first student will record the distance in meters the bird will travel, another student will time in seconds with a stopwatch the duration the vehicle traveled, another student will record all the data down on a data table on a sheet of paper to later be placed into a spreadsheet, and finally another student will fly/test the mechanical flapping bird. Next the students will compute velocity using the fundamental equation of physics that distance = velocity * Time or X=VT. Then after the students have computed the velocity they may graph the velocity as a function of time to visually represent their data they have collected. The students will graph the data they collected from their built mechanical birds. Projectile motion concepts will be incorporated. Angles from using “SOHCAHTOA” will be used so they can calculate the angle the mechanical birds fly at. Then they can graph / plot the trajectory of their mechanical birds. The equations that the students will use will increase their understanding of physics and how the equations of motion determine the mechanical birds performance. The students will realize how much of an engineering background they will get out of this by using a hands-on approach to solving real world problems. The students will make conclusions from the data they collect based on the maximum time the bird traveled, the minimum time the bird traveled, the maximum distance the bird traveled, the minimum distance the bird traveled, the average distance the bird traveled and the average time the bird traveled. In the next week, from the data collected the students will analyze their data by graphing/plotting the height as a function of the distance traveled using SI units.

Week 4 Project - Graphing/Plotting Trajectory Motion with Matlab Engineering Software

The main goal of this project was to have the youths graph their data then plot it with the help of the practicing engineers by using traditional engineering software called “Matlab.” This will give the students a head-up if the students decide to choose engineering as a future major they will have exposure to using actual engineering software where practicing engineers use to develop programming codes. The students will visualize the trajectory of how far and fast their mechanical bird has traveled by utilizing projectile motion equations. Then, after determining the vehicle with the fastest average velocity the statistics for that vehicle will be gathered. Approximately twenty-one statistical questions for the best performance vehicle based on average velocity will be answered. The questions that the students will answer is 1) What was the best performance vehicle based on height? 2) What was the initial flight angle of the bird? 3) What was the average velocity from experimental data? 4) What was the maximum height the bird traveled? 5) What was the maximum distance the bird traveled? 6) What was the weight of the bird? 7) What was the surface area of the bird's wing? 8) What was the drag force on the bird? 9) What was the lift force calculated on the bird? 10) What was the maximum time the bird traveled? 11) What was the minimum time the bird traveled? 12) What was the maximum distance the bird traveled? 13) What was the minimum distance the bird traveled? 14) What was the mean/average distance the bird traveled? 15) What was the mean/average time the bird traveled? 16) What was the range of the time the bird traveled? 17) What was the range of the distance the bird traveled? 18) What was the median of the time the bird traveled? 19) What was the median of the distance the bird traveled? 20) What was the mode of the time the bird traveled? 21) What was the mode of the distance the bird traveled? Here, the students should now understand how altering different design parameter can impact the performance of a vehicle.

Week 5 Project - Develop Poster Presentation to Present at Science Fairs Entitled:

“Designing, Building, Testing and Analyzing Air and Ground Vehicles”

During this week the students will have completed all the engineering work and ready to start developing the poster.The students at this point will have accomplished the following: (1) designed a mechanical flapping bird; (2) developed / built mechanical flapping birds; (3) collected experimental flight data on their built vehicles (4) analyzed the data through Matlab engineering software; (5) developed a poster and presented their findings on how changing different parameters in the mechanical flapping bird affects its flight performance.

Week 6 Project - Students Present Final Poster Presentation for Science Fairs Entitled:

“Designing, Building, Testing and Analyzing Air and Ground Vehicles”

In this project, the students will present their finalized work that encompassed a designed, built, and analyzed flapping mechanical birds. This is important because the students will gain understanding on what factors impact the performance of designing and testing micro air vehicles. It has been demonstrated that having tangible interfaces benefits the learning process of young students (Schneider, Wallace, Blikstein, & Pea, 2013). Students from 7th, 8th and 9th grade should now be able to grasp and visually interpret from their Matlab programming codes and data analysis how changing different parameters in the mechanical flapping bird affects its flight performance through their poster. On the poster, the students will show accomplishments by having designed, built and tested a mechanical flapping bird. The students will have gained mechanical and aerospace engineering skills by using a hands-on approach to solving real world problems.