Cristo Rey Jesuit College Preparatory School of Houston
Cristo Rey Jesuit has been chosen by the Center for the Advancement of Science In Space (CASIS) to be one of three schools in the nation to participate in a program to design and execute experiments on the International Space Station (ISS). Fr. Brian Reedy, SJ will be teaching two sections of Experimental Design that will prepare the students to develop the experiments they want to accomplish upon the ISS. They will design and build a microlaboratory which will house the experiment, write the Arduino code that will guide its automated robotic execution, and remotely control the experiment during the month of April 2014 as it circles the Earth. Considering the fact that the 2012 Auction Gala for Cristo Rey Jesuit was entitled "Defying Gravity" it is astonishingly appropriate that the students will be doing so quite literally this year.
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As school was starting this year, Mr. Adragna and Fr. Reedy attended classes offered by CASIS to help prepare them to direct the students in their experimental design. On the day pictured to the right they were learning how to program the Arduino "brain" that will power their automated microlab.
In order to support our projects, we chose 16 students from the Junior and Senior classes who will participate in an Experimental Design class. The students were chosen in order to build a team that would have the capability to come up with some interesting science, design an experiment that will produce original results, engineer the microlab that will carry out the automated experiment, gather and analyze the data, and communicate the whole process with elegance and style.
The teams are:
Senior Design Team:
Christopher Esparza, Mary Feit, Xochytl Nunez, Alexis Ramos, Kristopher Remo, Jessie Quintanilla, Yesenia Zetino, Jacqueline Zermeno
Junior Design Team:
Ramiro Arteaga, Shelby Borski, Dania Cardenas, Juan-Carlos Galindo, Gabriel Garcia, Miguel Marquez, Peter Obi, Kelly Wright
The teams are:
Senior Design Team:
Christopher Esparza, Mary Feit, Xochytl Nunez, Alexis Ramos, Kristopher Remo, Jessie Quintanilla, Yesenia Zetino, Jacqueline Zermeno
Junior Design Team:
Ramiro Arteaga, Shelby Borski, Dania Cardenas, Juan-Carlos Galindo, Gabriel Garcia, Miguel Marquez, Peter Obi, Kelly Wright
Fr. Reedy is holding the Ardulab that will contain the experiment that is sent to the ISS in May. The Ardulab, designed by Infinity Aerospace, is a 1000cm^3 box that contains an Arduino "brain" that will execute the student's experiment. The students will be learning this semester that this project is all about space. The vastness of space into which they will be sending their experiment. The oddities of space, which they will be exploiting for their research (especially microgravity). And the profoundly limited space inside the Ardulab, into which their entire experiment must fit.
Hi! My name is Ramiro Arteaga and I am 15. I am a Junior attending Cristo Rey Jesuit Preparatory School of Houston. I moved from my hometown Hamilton Texas in the summer of 2013 as soon as school was over. I moved from the country to the city life. I have always been into sports playing anything that has to do with running, including: football, cross country, basketball,
soccer and track. Also, I am very interested in animals and welding. I have always been fascinated by and am interested in going into the military. I would like to go into the medical field in the Air force.
soccer and track. Also, I am very interested in animals and welding. I have always been fascinated by and am interested in going into the military. I would like to go into the medical field in the Air force.
At the very beginning of the year, the class decided that they wanted to do something biological for their experiment. Having flirted with the idea of viruses and cacti, they quickly moved towards fungi. Fr. Reedy noticed a "fairy ring" on his way in to work one day, so the class went out to observe the phenomenon and devise a set of experiements that they could perform on the fairy ring. We had no idea how important this little experiment would be in the future. Although fairy rings have been traditionally associated with bad luck (as you can see from the poem below) we found that our day of experiments helped us greatly in navigating future experimental issues.
He wha tills the fairies' green
Nae luck again shall hae
And he wha spills the fairies' ring
Betide him want and wae.
For weirdless days and weary nights
Are his till his deein' day.
But he wha gaes by the fairy ring,
Nae dule nor pine shall see,
And he wha cleans the fairy ring
An easy death shall dee.
He wha tills the fairies' green
Nae luck again shall hae
And he wha spills the fairies' ring
Betide him want and wae.
For weirdless days and weary nights
Are his till his deein' day.
But he wha gaes by the fairy ring,
Nae dule nor pine shall see,
And he wha cleans the fairy ring
An easy death shall dee.
From the very beginning of the class, the students have focused on the engineering process. They have been engaged in many activities that allow them to explore topics of science and engineering, with an eye towards exoperimentation. These have included practical challenges, design challenges, goal oriented games, building contests, and in-class "scrambles" i.e. assignments that are intended to require fast-paced brainstorming to overcome some problem.
We were very fortunate to have class during the test launch for our experiement. We logged in online and watched the launch together. During the launch you could see the excitement on the students' faces and we moved our trip planning into high gear.
One of the practica we did in class was an experience in communication and programming. The students had to guide each other in the drawing of a figure that only the leader could see. They had to use spatial identifiers, clear instructions, and creative wording to get the drawers to accurately reproduce what they were looking at. These skills will help them when they are programming the Arduino.
During another practicum the students had to design a ball launcher that met the stated criteria. One of the contraints was that the winnning team had to maximize their score. The score was calculated according to the equation Score = Maximum distance travelled by a ball * (the number of successful attempts / the number of failed attempts). One of the curiosities of the equation is that a perfect record of launches would render your score non-existant (dividing by zero) so the best strategy was to sacrifice one ball, and to use that sacrifice to achieve a good maximum distance. One of the learning moments in this practicum was for the students to learn to explore the mathmatical constraints present in a system and to look for ways to make them work for you.
Another practicum was to do a blind ball-drop using a marble. The winning team was determined by the greatest number of successful drops. One of the main things stressed in this practicum was the need to determine and define variables, and how to address data handling.
Another practicum was to do a blind ball-drop using a marble. The winning team was determined by the greatest number of successful drops. One of the main things stressed in this practicum was the need to determine and define variables, and how to address data handling.
We went to see Dr. Pettit speak at Rice University. The students were very impressed by him. It was an inspiring talk with great photos. The students got to meet him afterward, and he gave us some feedback on our project proposals.
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Juniors work on designing the set up of the Arduino lab and how it will record the lipids in their movement and where they should set up the cameras and where the motor should be at. the different designs are different ideas that they can have.
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In this picture, is the design of the petri dish that will contain the experiment of testing which liquid foods the slime molds area attracted to. We are putting the name of the class, "CASIS Experimental Design," into action. As the archivist, I was assigned to sketch an experiment for the food test.
The movement of slime molds across different samples of foods and liquids help us understand one of the many phenomena of microbiology and help us understand the wonders of nature. We are anxious to be able to see slime molds in a micro gravity environment as this will help us understand their behavior in various situations.
The students conducted a series of taste tests for the slime molds. We wanted to feed the slime molds what is pleasing to them while in space. In this picture below, this was a second version of the taste tests. The slime molds responded very well to oat extract (on the solid support at 1 o'clock).
The oat extract was hard to work with (stabilized with EDTA it lost its favor with the slime molds). We tried several other things. In this photo we have chia seed extract and coconut endosperm. They liked the endosperm (located on the solid support at 1 o'clock). You can see the slime trails that show that the slime molds had tasted the chia seeds and didn't like them.
Camera circuit - check. Now to find a new SD card so we can get this slime mold show on the road.
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The above video demonstrates the slime mold redirecting its movement back towards a new site of endosperm application. We have found our stable food!