Eric Apfel
Introduction
I'm a high school physics teacher with five years of teaching experience. I've earned a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Central Florida and recently earned a master's degree in teaching physics. In addition to the Strata-2P project, I've participated in research experiences at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahasee, FL and Fermilab in Batavia, IL. My passions steer me towards astrophysics, and I'm excited about being a part of the Strata-2P project as a teacher-in-residence.
Arduino Basics
Arduinos combine programming code with a microcontroller and are extremely useful in performing simple automated tasks without taking up much physical space. Given the nature of the experiments used by Strata-2P, an Arduino is ideal in making measurements and controlling miniature robotics inside of the 8 to 12 inch tubes (Entrapulators) housing simulatenously run experiments put into a microgravity environment or simulated microgravity environment.
The fundamentals of Arduinos are learned through the construction of simple circuits utilizing standard electronic components including resistors, buttons, LEDs, and Piezo speakers, then writing software to operate the circuits. Initial examples include using a button to light up a series of LEDs in sequence, or using a sensor to convert the amount of lumination to different sounds.
Ultimately Arduinos have a large range of applications used by Strata-2P. One primarily use for Arduinons is to control motors used to extend and contract a robotic arm, stirring up simulated regolith in a clear tube container. Other uses include measuring thermal and electrical conductivy of regolith and saving data to an SD card. Since laptops or other computers are too large to mount with the experiments, being able to have a tiny device perform all the necessary tasks is essential.
Electrical Conductivity of Regolith Simulant
One of the tasks of Strata-2P is to determine how to measure the electrical conductivity of lunar regolith under micro gravity conditions. Due to the extremely low conductivity, the voltage drop across a divider paired with the regolith material results in a potential too small to accurately detect with an Arduino. To resolve this situation Jared Long-Fox, a research specialist assigned to assist on the project, considered using a non-inverting operation amplifier to boost the output voltage. I assisted in constructing and testing the circuit with varying resistor ratios to change amplification levels.
Python Coding
Research involves a lot of data analysis, looking at thousands of lines of numbers. A great way to read this data is to use computers to read the information and organize it in a way that's easier for people to read. A bar graph, pie chart, or scatterplot is much easier for most people to decipher than looking at a spreadsheet of numerical data. Python is a programming language used extensively by research scientists to easily read and manipulate this data in an intuitive way to quickly analyze information.
I used Python to take information from Strata-2P experiments and generated fun activities for secondary education students to do their own research, manipulating code and running tests to draw their own conclusions from actual data.
MegaCon 2022
I joined a panel at MegaCon 2022 held at the Orlando Convention Center called Hey Educators! Pop Culture + STEM Education hosted by The Science Of. Check out their website at thescienceof.org to learn more about them and how they endeavor to incorporate superheroes, anime, and more into school activities.
Taking Tools to the Classroom
I've assembled a wealth of tools to use in my classroom both during normal instruction and also through afterschool activites:
Slack is a messaging app used extensively by the members of the Strata-2P team to communicate and share photos, videos, and data files. I've adopted the app for use in my classroom to communicate with students and share files with them regarding my Engineering Club activites.
The aforementioned Arduinos provide numerous projects for high school students to develop skills ranging in difficulty as needed. Students learn how to construct basic electronic circuits and also learn coding in C++ to read inputs and write outputs to their circuit. My Engineering club students in particular learned to utilize Arduinos to operate an IR sensor on a small mobile robot and differentiate between various frequencies being emitted from other Arduino-driven IR emitters.