High School, Space Exploration Projects, Lessons, Activities (46 results)
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Humans cannot see infrared light, but robots can! At least, they can when they use special infrared light sensors. These sensors can help robots detect nearby objects to avoid collisions and even help them avoid driving off edges. In this project you will build your own Arduino robot that uses infrared sensors to avoid driving off the edge of a table.
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If you know or calculate the field of view for your camera, you can use it to measure distances and the height of almost anything. It's all a matter of basic trigonometry.
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The Sun is the ultimate source of the energy that powers weather systems on Earth. Geomagnetic storms are sun-powered storms in the upper atmosphere, arising from energized particles that are periodically ejected by the Sun. Among other effects, geomagnetic storms can wreak havoc with earth-orbiting satellites, and disrupt satellite communications. The global positioning system (GPS) is a network of 24 earth-orbiting satellites that constantly sends radio signals through the earth's…
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Here's a cool project that shows you how to use images from an orbiting observatory to measure how fast the Sun rotates.
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Lesson Plan
Grade: 9th-12th
Building on an introduction to statics, dynamics free-body diagrams, combustion and thermodynamics provided by the associated lesson, students design, construct and test their own rocket engines using sugar and potassium nitrate—an opportunity to apply their knowledge of stoichiometry. This activity helps students understand that the energy required to launch a rocket comes from the chemical energy stored in the rocket fuel. The performance of each engine is tested…
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NGSS Performance Expectations:
A mass driver is a proposed device that could launch payloads into space using a long tube lined with electromagnets (Figure 1). Some scientists argue that such a launch system would offer long-term cost savings over the use of chemical rockets.
Scientists have proposed theoretical electromagnetic launcher designs as far back as the 1970s (O'Neill 1979). More recently, some have proposed the use of railguns originally developed for the U.S. Navy (McNab and McGlasson 2022). Other types of…
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