Greetings and welcome to the Project Phoenix Wiki. Here you'll find a place for us to take our notes, make our revisions, and collaborate on new projects.
2017.08.21
Greetings greetings fellow star gazers! Today is a very special day! In band class a few years ago, our normal music lesson was derailed by talk of astronomy. I remember we talked about constellations, meteor showers, and finally lunar and solar eclipses. I asked google when the next solar eclipse was, and the computer replied the “next solar eclipse viewable in your area will occur on August 21, 2017”. I promptly asked google to remind me to “look at the sun” on that day. Well, the day is here!
At time.com, you can enter your zip code to see a simulation of what the eclipse might look like in your area. For Virginians, the show starts around 1:00 this afternoon.
Now, for the engineers among you. If you aren't lucky enough to have a SunSpotter Solar Telescope, here are some things you can do to make the experience better..since you're not supposed to look directly at the sun.
Enjoy it! We don't get the opportunity to view an eclipse very often! (The last one for me was when I was in elementary school!)
2017.07.28
Well, this summer is almost in the books! I look forward to a great year! Last year presented a lot of challenges! After our computer lab was unceremoniously dismantled, it plunged us back into the dark ages…but that's okay..we built medieval siege weapons! So without a computer lab, how will we continue?
Like the phoenix, we will rebuild. We will build our own computer lab using the Raspberry Pi. My goal is for each of you to build your own. We'll use them to design and program an arduino powered greenhouse! I'll put together a supply list we'll need. Here are some links to get us started!
The team revived an old trebuchet and tweaked on it a bit before its fulcrum broke. {https://youtu.be/1E7sdGNOV-Q}
In the spirit of engineering (as well as the phoenix), we had to rebuild from our ashes! Inspired from a Virginia Tech design, the team built a new and improved floating arm trebuchet!