hoticeproject -

We're back!

After a quite serious clash with illness we were forced to take away focus from our CanSat project for a little while but now we’ve (finally!) picked it up once again and are now working very hard to get everything done in time. Due to the time we’ve lost these last weeks our working effort will now be set to max.

Since we began to work with the project once again, we have discovered a number of problems that had not occurred to us before and that need to be solved as quickly as possible. The week that has passed has been dedicated to solving these problems, for example we have trying to figure out how to place all the parts in our CanSat jar as nifty as possible to try and use the space to the best extent.

Another problem that we have to deal with in the coming weeks is the problem of how we will be able to record the events inside the can (with our brand new miniature camera which you can see below) since we discovered that the camera is not very good at filming up close. A possible way to solve this problem is to put in some kind of lens between the camera and the jar of sodium acetate to sharpen up the recording. To investigate this matter we will test out some lenses at school to see which one works the best and then order one like it, but much smaller of course, online.

Another problem that we discovered with the camera is that we need some kind of luminous diode inside the jar if we don’t want the camera to film inside a pitch black jar. This diode we will also order online and hopefully we will be able to hook it up to the battery that will power the circuit cart inside the jar. Having to put another battery in the jar would be very hard since it’s already very crowded in there!

Last Friday two members of the team tried to make some sodium acetate solution, and the result of the experiment you can see below. The results weren’t exactly the way we wanted them since the crystallisation started way too early. This could however had been due to the fact that we put the solution outside instead of inside a refrigerator like the recipe said, putting it out there may have made the solution to cold or the wind may have started the crystallisation. More tests will be executed very soon!

Part from all that we have also made a ”test-jar” for the sodium acetate which resembles the jar we plan to put it in the actual can in Norway. This jar is made of acrylic glass that we have cut out and that we now have glued together. We will try and nail this jar shut as well to make it as compact as possible so it will not leak. Maybe we will even use silicone to get it as impenetrable as possible.

As you see we in the Hot Ice team have a lot of work ahead of us in the coming weeks. But hopefully we as a team will solve all of these little technical difficulties.