Bergen STEM Amateur Radio High Altitude Balloon (ARHAB)

Review the collection assembly specifications and modify them so the cover and petri dish fit together properly Reorient the assembly so that the assembly support rods are perpendicular to the support rods passing through the box (realign the mounting screws and holes..) --- Will we need a new box for this? Or can we reuse previous box? Consider using aluminum rods through the payload box and metal screws and bolts to hold everything together. Reprint anything that needs to be rebuilt. Bigger base that fits the petri dish (Deeper, hole wider...this has been done on Fusion) Gear needs to be looked at (entire sliding mechanism) Bottom rails will need to be adjusted Review the software line by line to make sure that it is doing what we want (Kassem , Sadik, me, any other person who wants to join the software team…) Insure that the s/w converts voltages recorded into usable units and make sure that we know what those units are… Review the new circ...

9/21/18 Petri parameters; Wall thickness: 2.1 mm +- 0.1 mm Height including ridge: 20.0 mm Diameter: equal to fusion model but might need more clearance for easier inserting Old polycarbonate: 0.490"x0.400" Ordered full 1/2'x1/2" rods in polycarbonate and aluminum as well as a smaller size aluminum rod. 10/12/18 Materials came in and at the moment the smaller aluminum is appearing to be our go to rod-material. Reorganized the mess that came with moving rooms. All is now is in separate bins. 10/19/2018 The team met with Professor Balzarette and discussed materials and overall weight solutions. The idea of carbon fiber tubing came up for a possible more rigid and light material than the polycarbonate or aluminum. The batteries take up a lot of space and weight so we need to look into finding a solution for this.

We are almost finished with the payload. We finished the petri dish holders and cut holes in the box for the rods. We are did a mock assembly of the payload in order to weigh everything en masse. The payload weighs 8 pounds.

We finally have one of the compartments for the Petri dish. Unfortunately, it seems to be a bit too small, so we might need to either enlarge and reprint the model or file a few things down. The dish does fit if its pushed into place using a bit of force. Due to the way the holder was designed, the dish can only fit if its pushed in. The dish is essentially like a trapezoid (a bit like so \__/), thus in order for it to fit, the larger top side has to be pushed through the smaller bottom side of the holder. The motor mounts and the cover are being printed. We also finished the invitation form and sent it to Louis.

The components for the Petri dish holders are being printed and soaked. Zack updated the poster while Josh and Ian finished and submitted the AGU abstract. Joshua G. made the motor driver work. It is bidirectional and it was successful in driving a servo with the gear attached in both direction.

Zachary touched up the poster, Ian finalized the abstract, and Sadik is trying to graph the test flight data. We also measured the parachute-to-balloon cord and the parachute-to-package cord, which were 37' and 29' 4", respectively. In the meantime, the biologists took our remaining 5 Petri dishes to sterilize them and add agar for the launch. This leaves us with one Petri dish for testing. Yesterday, we finished rendering the payload in Fusion 360. This included two Petri dish assemblies, two Spot GPS holders, one APRS holder, one battery holder with two batteries and three camera casings (two in the box, one in the lid). The circuit board has not been included yet; we're still waiting for the digital pressure sensor and thermistor.

Today, - Zach added styrofoam shimming to one of the Hero 3 camera constructions to keep it in place - Ian continued work on box outlining - Still waiting for the rods, sheets, pressure sensor and thermistors to arrive.