A Tour of JPL

(This is the eighth in a series of blog articles written by the Providence Engineering Academy students. Pedro in 11th grade reflects on his experience at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena on our class field trip earlier this year.)

“The trip was really inspiring way above expectations. I enjoyed the chance to see where they work, and the 2020 rover was a memory I will never forget.”

“It really re-awoke the third grade Nolan in me. The rover around Saturn replica was cool to see, it was a great experience, and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to go.”

These are the words Josh and Nolan stated about our class trip to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL was a fun and interesting experience, and in our tour we got to learn and see things that we’ve never seen before.

First off, we saw a video that was amazing to watch. This video showed us the gigantic size of the whole universe and taught us that most of it hasn’t been explored. It also showed some satellites and spacecraft that were launched into space, and we were able to look at smaller scaled models of these around the room.

Our host shows the various scale models of historical space probes

Next, we got to see the control room, which was full of screens and numbers. This is the room where they gather information from every spacecraft, rover, and satellite. It is also the place from which they controlled the landing of the Mars rover, Curiosity, in 2012—which we learned was a really terrifying seven minutes for these hard workers! 

The control center, from which every robotic space mission
has been monitored

Then, we got to see photos from one of the rovers on Mars. These photos had been taken just hours earlier and we got to see them on a screen!

After that, we got to see the construction of the 2020 Mars rover. Amazing! We learned that anyone that is eighteen or under can get their name applied on the 2020 rover.

The rover being constructed inside a "clean room"

Our final stop was the gift shop, which sold “space” ice cream, sweaters, and some cool toys for your kids. Overall, JPL was a fun and really cool experience for all of us.

Private vs. Government Space Programs

(This is the seventh in a series of blog articles written by the Providence Engineering Academy students. In this article, 12th-grade student Todd shares why privately-funded organizations may be a better choice for space exploration.)

Space travel. It’s been around since 1961 when the Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin into space. But who has been sending people into space here in the United States? For the longest time, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) were the sole authorities on spaceflight. That all changed when SpaceX, the first private space agency in the United States, was founded by Elon Musk in 2002. Since then, there have been 76 launches by SpaceX, and 26 launches by NASA.

But what is the difference between these two agencies? NASA is a public, government-owned organization and SpaceX is a private company that has not yet launched an IPO. So which organization takes a better approach?

Although NASA has a bigger history in the space travel industry, the real facts lie in the fundamentally different ways the two organizations are run. NASA is entirely funded by the government, so it gets its money from taxes and loans the government takes out. SpaceX is completely private, so its only money comes from its own profits and money from investors.

In my opinion, privately funded space organizations are the way to go because of the way they are funded. At the time of this writing, the United States national debt is around $22.8 trillion, and we have spent around $601 billion dollars on NASA so far. This money should be spent on other things such as working on shrinking the national deficit.

On the other hand, SpaceX has not gone public yet, so we do not know their current revenue and value. Though we do not know the numbers yet, we can say for sure that SpaceX does not contribute to the national debt, which is a very good thing.

One additional factor that sets the two groups apart is the ability to reuse rockets. SpaceX’s flagship rockets are the Falcon Heavys. The company boasts the ability to reuse its rockets after they have been recovered. This is a smart, cost-saving strategy that further proves that space travel should be privatized.

Regardless of the organization, one thing is for sure: space travel is here to stay, and the opportunities are ripe like never before.

The Flowers are Listening: Machines Inspired by Nature

(This is the sixth in a series of blog articles written by the Providence Engineering Academy students. In this article, 12th grade student Alena reflects on building machines inspired by God's incredible design found in His natural creation.)

Watch what you say because the flowers are listening.

Sounds like Alice in Wonderland, right? Okay, so maybe the flowers can’t listen to your conversation, but they do “listen.” Sound is so fundamental—birds, wind, the waves at the beach, cars driving by—that relying on it is essential to survival.

Researcher Lilach Hadany posed the question: what if flowers had this same necessary survival instinct? She concluded that they do and that they also respond to the sounds around them. Hadany and her team studied evening primroses (pictured) and discovered that when these flowers sense vibrations from bees’ wings they temporarily increase the concentration of sugar in their nectar. They concluded that it would be too much for the flower to produce this amount of sugar in the nectar at all times, so they respond to vibrations to know when to produce “the good stuff”.

Now picture this: twenty-four engineering students, sitting outside in the sun, 100% sure they had no idea about what today’s lesson will be. Then, Mr. Meadth hands out giant sticky notes. Confusion. Suddenly, Davis knows what’s going on (he’s been keeping up with recent science). Articles are handed out, read, and reread. It all makes sense now.

The engineering students are split into teams of two and asked to design a machine that can do the same things this flower can. The lesson of the day was all about how many machines today are based on nature, and how we can gain inspiration from looking at God’s creation around us. As the students started designing their own flower, they realized how complex the components would have to be.

Take a minute, and think of what you would need. Done? Cool. You may continue.

Let’s start at the top and work our way down. To replicate the “receiver” of the vibrations, you would need to replicate the petals. They were so precise that if you removed even one petal, the flowers didn’t respond to vibrations at all. You would also need a place for the sugar to be distributed from, as well as a computer to know how and when to change the sugar content, and by how much. You would need something connecting all of the sensors, the computer, the sugar center, and the power. There are so many components that we probably don’t even come close to listing them all here.

To replicate this phenomenon of nature in a machine is so complicated and precise, that it would take months or years to get even close to what nature can do. As we look at this flower as a microscopic portion of God’s creation and it’s vast complexity, we should step back and remember that we are His creation too, and we should find the goodness in everything.

(Find the full article on this amazing discovery here at National Geographic's website.)

Coding Champs!

The following article appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press on the 7th of January, written by Christian Whittle.

When Freshman Ruby Kilpper and sophomore Sydney Whited of the Providence School high school set out to develop an app for the Congressional App Challenge, they had a lot of ideas and not much time to choose one.

“We kept narrowing it down based on our skill level, what we thought we could do, and how much time we had,” said Sydney.

Eventually the two settled on Santa Barbara Volunteer Opportunities, a way for high schoolers to find volunteer opportunities in the area. And after a month of dedication their hard work paid off, winning the app challenge in Rep. Salud Carbajal’s 24th Congressional District.

Ruby and Sydney received the Congressional App Challenge award from Mr. Carbajal on Monday.

The annual coding competition for students was created to increase congressional awareness of computer science and STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).

Mr. Carbajal brought the two students to his Santa Barbara district office to honor their achievements and invite them to a reception at the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

“It’s a great opportunity to provide to our constituents and our young people, and it’s really cool to have young people from your district represented in Washington. We’re all very proud of you,” said Mr. Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara.

The pair are students in the Providence Engineering Academy. Launched in 2015, the academy, led by Rodney Meadth, serves as a springboard for students considering a career in math, science, or engineering disciplines. Participants enroll in specific classes from ninth through 12th grades.

Santa Barbara High School students won the challenge last year, but Providence stepped up the competition in 2019 by submitting eight projects.

“We’ve never gotten so many projects submitted from one school in particular, so obviously your teacher and your school had a lot to do with it and it just makes me feel really good about our future, the fact that you have a local school who’s really promoting coding,” Mr. Carbajal told the students.

The app Ruby and Sydney created for the competition, the Santa Barbara Volunteer Opportunities app, allows local nonprofits to post opportunities to serve, with details about age and time requirements, location, and the work needed from volunteers.

Users can use the app when they are interested in finding somewhere to serve. The pair wrote the app’s script in Java with 500 lines of code, and designed it mainly for use by high school students.

Sydney and Ruby were inspired to make the app by Providence’s annual day of service, in which students volunteer around the city, as well as Sydney’s experience volunteering with her mother for the Santa Barbara chapter of the National Charity League.

“I think it’s a great requirement to go out and serve your community, but sometimes it can be difficult to find opportunities to serve,” Ruby said.

The pair wanted to create a platform where students can reach out to organizations on their own to find different opportunities that work for their schedule and interests.

“We wanted to create an app that made the process easier and overall better for our community,” said Ruby.

“This was very innovative,” said Mr. Carbajal. “My staff and I, we went through them all, and yours was clearly at the top early on because it’s just so practical, and it’s so user friendly.”

Although they had some experience coding, it was the first time either of them had worked with Java. Sydney had tried coding in middle school and didn’t take to it, but this time around she and Ruby had a lot of fun. Both have been inspired to continue learning about coding as they think about college and the future.

With the limited time to come up with a concept and develop the app, Sydney and Ruby weren’t able to fit in every feature they wanted, like a search bar and map. Nevertheless, they’re proud of what they were able to accomplish.

The SBVO app is still in the development and testing stage and is not yet available for download, but Ruby and Sydney are considering finishing the project despite the Challenge having ended.

Established in 2015, the Congressional App Challenge is considered to be the most prestigious prize in student computer science, according to the CAC website.

Members of the House of Representatives host contests in their districts for middle and high school students, encouraging them to learn to code and inspiring them to pursue careers in computer science.

Participating House members each select a winning app from their districts, and each winning team is invited to showcase their winning app at the U.S. Capitol during the annual #HouseOfCode festival in the spring.

Since its inception, the CAC has inspired more than 14,000 students across 48 states to program an app. In 2019, 10,000 students registered for the competition, 2,177 created and submitted functioning apps, and 304 House members chose winners from their districts.

Sydney and Ruby will receive a $250 Amazon Web Service Credit. Their app and their names will be displayed on the Congressional App Challenge website. The House of Representatives reception will be the second time Sydney and Ruby have visited the Capitol, after an eighth-grade field trip to the city.

“Now you get to go back as winners!” said Mr. Carbajal.

email: cwhittle@newspress.com

Major Project: Hexacopter Drone

(The fifth in our student blog series, written by Sam in 11th Grade, is followed by the teacher's two updates on the project, so please read all the way down! Flight tests were finally successful, as students and teacher alike learned the hard realities of "going back to the drawing board!")

While we don’t plan on taking him to the sun, Icarus was the name we selected for our massive hexacopter drone. With a 31-inch diameter, and the theoretical ability to lift almost two pounds on top of its own five-pound weight, it is operating at the higher end of recreational drone constraints. Most commercially available drones today feature only four propellers, and a mass of around one pound.

Early sketches of the design, with design priorities listed on the side

When we were designing “Thiccarus” we decided to push the boundaries with the materials we had available. A hexacopter design, as opposed to a more common quadcopter (a standard recreational design with four propellers), gave us more lift power and stability with a trade off on speed and maneuverability. To reduce weight and maintain strength Thiccarus would be constructed with 3D printed body parts and carbon fiber struts connecting them. However, when we were brainstorming, we decided that our drone’s primary function would be cargo delivery (despite my suggestions to make it into a fishing drone or a laser-toting drone with a search and destroy mission).

Pedro, Nolan, and Joshua tear apart
old quadcopter drones from two years
ago--fare thee well!

We came up with our design, then our constraints and requirements. After this, we split into design teams, each headed by ”captains.” After the protective shrouds around each propeller and control center base were decided upon, we set to starting a joint Onshape project. Onshape is our 3D design platform of choice for this project. Each team member was assigned one component of Thiccarus to design, and it came together well in a collaborative fashion. Each member of the design team is able to see in real time how their part will integrate with the other parts, which is incredibly helpful.

The eight students work concurrently on the drone CAD model,
with each one instantly able to see how their component fits into
the broader scope

The hexacopter design emerges!

The largest and most difficult piece to print: the central electronics
platform; five or six attempts at printing were required

Icarus is currently in the printing stage, and when it is fully constructed, it will be mounted with two cameras feeding to a battery powered LCD screen. Steered by the controller, it will be capable of flying high and low to deliver small payloads.

(Sam's article was written in early October. After a delay in printing production due to some technical difficulties, the entire drone was finally fully assembled and taken for some early test flights. And now the update—which gets a little technical...)

After many hours of printing and assembly...

Sam, Ben, and Todd carefully attach
the motors and batteries and other
electronic components

The 8th Period engineering class proudly marched their huge drone out to the Providence soccer pitch. Gentle (and safe!) power-ups in the classroom had proved troublesome, with erratic behavior being immediately apparent. The drone was very touchy, and tended to spin around and roll to one side. Cutting the throttle from even six inches of altitude caused the aircraft to fall with a ungraceful "thump", with small 3D-printed pieces occasionally breaking off.

Alena gave an insightful suggestion that we could take it outside and stretch out a big sheet of fabric to catch the drone as it fell. This would allow us to try to gain more altitude—and more time to evaluate its behavior and get it under manual control. The soft fall into the fabric would certainly keep both drone and students completely safe! As an added bonus, we would look comically like cartoon fire-fighters.

The group heads outside to try an initial flight: safety goggles on!

And look like cartoon fire-fighters we did! The plan worked rather well, except for Ben slipping accidentally in a mud patch on the field in his zeal for saving the drone. With the extra flight altitude and time, we learned that the machine wanted to spin on its vertical axis—absolutely out of control. Where it should have lifted gingerly into the air and hovered obediently, it was a veritable whirling dervish, and the group could not even agree on their recollection of whether it had spun clockwise or counter-clockwise!

It may look like the class is flinging it into the air—we promise
it is actually flying!

In a typical situation like this, the pilot should be able to add in some "yaw" trim. This means that the controller is set to always provide a little bit extra of yaw control, intended to counteract whatever is naturally happening and make everything balance out again. But adding yaw trim in either direction just didn't change anything, and after one particularly wild spin the drone fell outside of the fabric and broke one of its 3D-printed propeller shrouds.

See that tilt to one side? About three seconds later Thiccarus
successfully escaped our circle of friendship!

Back to the drawing board...

1. It is possible that the flight controller—the 1-inch small box that houses gyroscopes and inputs and outputs and magnetometers and so on—is just misbehaving or badly calibrated. But after several recalibrations and trying an alternate one that we had in stock, there was no improvement. Check.
2. Is Thiccarus just way too "thicc"? Maybe. We could have designed more aggressively, and perhaps brought him down to 2 kg even (4.4 lb). But the specs say that each motor should be able to create up to 550 grams of thrust. With six motors in total, that's 3.3 kg of thrust available (7.3 lb). And it's definitely getting off the ground, even with the thrust output turned down for safety. So: check.
3. It is possible that one or more motors are just misbehaving or getting bad signals. Tiny, threadlike wires carry the commands between the different components, and we have run into problems of this nature before. But replacing one bad cable fixed that, and simple individual motor bench tests show snappy, responsive motors that will blow your papers away from across the room.

When all else fails, Google it. Apparently, when your drone experiences untrimmable yaw, it is likely the result of not having set all motors perfectly level. In other words, one or more propellers might not be perfectly flat relative to the ground, but tilted slightly to one side. And yes, this is quite noticeable on poor old Thiccarus once you look for it. Fortunately, it can be easily solved by readjusting the four screws that hold each motor down, and putting a little "shim" on one side to nudge it up to level.

This is actually an interesting application of standard high school trigonometry. If a thrust vector is pointing straight up to sky, well and good. This is what the flight controller is banking on for its power distribution calculations. But if a motor is tipped to one side by even two or three degrees (barely perceptible to the eye), the aircraft will experience a mysterious lateral force equal to the thrust times the sine of the angle. If the motor is generating a healthy 500 grams of thrust (a little over a pound), three degrees of tilt creates 26 grams of sideways thrust (500sin3°). Small but significant—and the flight controller is not accounting for it.

Maddening: yes. Fixable: absolutely. The motors will be checked and adjusted, and Thiccarus will be bandaged up and flown again. It is also very likely that a Mark II design will surface in the second semester, with higher tolerances for motor angles accounted for from the very beginning and a lighter airframe. Less airframe weight means longer flight times, a more responsive drone, and a greater possible payload.

Providence Engineering Academy: carry on!

(Our final update for this story on the 19th of November.  Spoiler alert: it's a happy ending!)

As promised, the motors were checked and adjusted. Ben and Mr. Meadth stayed after school and carefully placed pieces of card under this or that side of the motors to shim them up, bringing them as close as possible to vertical. Three motors were in need of adjustment, but none of them were out of line by more than about two or three degrees.

The drone was powered up, with high hopes... but the end result was exactly the same. Thiccarus wanted to flip over to the side and rotate faster and faster, and nothing could persuade him otherwise. Forget flying too close to the sun—Thiccarus couldn't even get off the ground!

And then...

And then...

Mr. Meadth had his flash of inspiration, and it all came down to this image:

The source of all problems.

This diagram shows the initial wiring and setup instructions from the flight controller. A certain teacher thought he had carefully followed the diagram; unfortunately, he had set the actual propeller directions all opposite. For example, propeller 1 was supposed to be rotating clockwise, but it had been set up to be counter-clockwise.

What's the big deal, you ask? Well, while having everything opposite would still be balanced to some degree, the flight controller uses the spinning propellers to control its yaw. Say the craft wants to yaw to the left, it chooses a propeller to spin faster to the right (like propeller 1), and Newton's Law of Reactions takes over. If it wants to yaw to the right, it might choose a left-spinning propeller to do that (like propeller 2). But since each and every one was backwards, the corrective actions it tried to take were in every case making the situation worse. If it started drifting left, it would end up spinning more left—a classic vicious circle if ever there was one.

A quick click of a checkbox in the computer and that was solved. All propellers: backwards. Oops.

Propellers... spinning the correct way!

You know you're doing something
right when you're looking at the bottom
of the drone

This portable outdoor screen receives
video input from two onboard cameras

Today marks another successful series of flights. We currently get about ten minutes of air time with two fully charged batteries. Three students plus teacher have been brave enough to fly around a little bit. No major accidents—perhaps a leg snapping off here or there with a rough landing!

Lessons learned:

1. Persistence pays off. If this is a thing that can be done, then you can do it. Just get out there and keep troubleshooting until you work it out.
2. This is a new era of high school education. To collaborate on a CAD model, 3D print it, order the electronics, and create a hovering 2.2 kg monstrosity in the space of three months is just not something a school could have done in-house ten years ago. Truly these are amazing times!
3. These students are capable. With the right leadership and direction, they know how to think and problem solve and calculate and design. They will go far.

The story ends here, but keep an eye out for Mark II! We just can't resist. There are already so many things that could be optimized (chiefly, stronger airframe and lighter weight). Lighter weight means more air time, so bring it on! Look out for Son of Thiccarus in the second semester, and until then, stay posted.

Collaboration with the Physical Education Department

(The fourth in our student blog series comes from Nolan in 11th Grade, and gives the final update on a project that was begun last year.)

Last year, the focus of the Advanced Engineering I group (juniors and seniors) of the Providence Engineering Academy was statics, or the branch of physics associated with objects at rest. As a way to explore this topic, the members of the Engineering Academy collaborated with the Providence Physical Education Department. Their goal was to create versatile wooden boxes that could function in many different ways: an obstacle course, a balance beam, or a step-up box, for example. In this way, the engineering students created a system that would not only benefit the P.E. program, but would also help them learn more about statics, since the structure would have to be able to withstand the use of the junior highers (not breaking or sliding on the grass when jumped on, while having multiple uses).

The first box shown in a virtual assembly

The second box shown translucent, interior strength wall visible

This first step of this project was to create paper models of the boxes, to see how everything would fit together. After Mr. Meadth, the director of the Engineering Academy, approved the designs, the team shifted to using an online program called Onshape. Onshape is a design tool used to create realistic models of objects. This CAD technique allowed the budding engineers to visualize their designs of the boxes further and make adjustments where needed. Once the “CADing” was complete, it was time to start producing and assembling the actual boxes.

Mr. Meadth checks the fit of the first two pieces of one box, as
students look on

The students wrestle with the heavy pieces, sliding them into place

Incorporating the “box joint” technique (resembling a three-dimensional puzzle, used for strength), the two large boxes were finally completed after lots of hard work from last year’s juniors and seniors. Each box comprised approximately nine pieces, weighed about 120 pounds, and had volumes of 80 and 48 cubic feet, respectively. Another fun touch added to these boxes was a grid of four inch squares cut into sides of the boxes, allowing them to be connected together with beams. These boxes are oddly shaped, one like a cube cut along the diagonal and the other like a cube with a rectangular chunk missing, which only adds to their versatility.

An almost completed box, missing two faces and the inner wall

Fast-forward three months: two
amazing boxes just as planned!

Since these boxes were created last year, they have had much use from the junior highers. Mr. Mitchell, the P.E. teacher, says that he is “very grateful that the Engineering Academy did this," and that "these boxes really enhance the fitness pursuits and the program as a whole." Judging by the frequency of use and Mr. Mitchell's gratefulness, this project was a resounding success. Great work, Providence Engineering Academy!

A grateful Mr. Mitchell urges his students on as they create
innovative workout routines

Inspiration from Michele Weslander-Quaid

(The next in our student blog series comes from Madison in 12th Grade.)

Earlier this semester, our Providence Engineering Academy had the honor of hearing from Michele Weslander-Quaid. She shared a brief description of her life growing up with many challenges and gave us the charge that we are never too young to lead or change the world. 

Despite some disadvantages in her background, Michele was able to accomplish incredible things, which she attributes largely to her mother’s sacrificial parenting sending her to a Santa Barbara Christian School. She went on to be the youngest Chief Engineer and the second female Chief Engineer in the history of her company, one of the youngest Senior Executives in U.S. Government history, and Google CTO for Public Sector and Innovation Evangelist.

Michele shares the wisdom she has learned over the years

Michele went on to tell us that too often people are judged by the circumstances into which they were born. She encouraged us that even if we have rough backgrounds, we should not let our disadvantages hold us back from our dreams for the future or let past experiences decide our fate. 

One of the powerful quotes she mentioned was by Charles R. Swindoll saying: “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” Life is all about the decisions we make based on events that have happened to us, not the events themselves. We can choose to let our past experiences or upbringing lead us to a never-ending cycle for generations to come, or we can stand up against those tendencies and do great things. We are in control of our own destiny.

The entire Academy poses with our guest!

A couple of years ago Michele spoke to us and gave a similar charge that we are never too young to change the world. It was that presentation that encouraged me to pursue a particular future for myself: to enter into one of the military academies as an engineer. 

I am still actively working today to reach that goal because of her. Michele is such an inspirational speaker and I hope that other students—or even adults—will realize that the difficulties of their past need not define their future.

Thank you again, Michele, for inspiring us with your life story.