Santa Fe High (113)

The Santa Fe High team (#113) is from Santa Fe. This year they've submitted a project titled The End of the World, From a Big Rock....

Proposal
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_proposal1112.php?team_id=113

The End of the World by: Radiation?

Team: 113

School: Santa Fe High

Area of Science: Cosmology

Proposal: Our sun has a fascinating life, a lot of it dangerous! The sun has many sudden outbursts of radiation and heat, called solar flares. Scientists are trying to figure out how big a solar flare, aimed in the right direction, could damage people beyond repair. Our lives would be drastically changed if the Earth were to be hit with such a solar flare.

Our goal is to calculate how big a solar flare would have to be in order to hurt or kill a large number of people. We also plan to determine how we can protect ourselves against these flares. Such flares are capable of knocking out our sources of power and WiFi along with cell towers. In the 1800's a solar flare hit the Earth head-on and caused damage. Luckily, the only thing that was damaged was a new type of technology: the telegraph. How would you live without technology?

Team Members: Ryan Martinez Thomas Warren Wilia Williams

Sponsoring Teacher: Anita Nugent

Interim Report
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_interim1112.php?team_id=113

The End of the World, From a Big Rock...

Team: 113

School: Santa Fe High

Area of Science: cosmology

Problem:
Asteroids are a huge problem that have daunted human life since their discovery. It sparked a lot of "what ifs" that drove us to think of ways for protecting ourselves. Even one of the theories that brought the dinosaurs to extinction, could easily end us as well. The major problem is that no one knows when and where an asteroid could be hurtling towards the Earth. An even bigger problem is how do we keep it away. Our goal is to see just how many asteroids are out there and if they pose a danger to our planet. Asteroids constantly fly by our planet, but what if one of them couldn't overcome the escape velocity of the Earth? The asteroid is blasted into motion, since there is no friction in space, it will never slow down as long as there is nothing in its way. It flies close enough to Earth that it cannot escape its gravity. Then it crashes.

Problem Solution:
Figuring out the velocity of the oncoming asteroid, we can send a huge object with equal force to divert it. We will find out how fast the asteroids come and what angle at our atmosphere they are flying at. Only things that can divert its trajectory, if we blew it up, shrapnel of the asteroid will rain all over the Earth. While not causing world wide extinction, it would cause quite a lot of damage to us.

Progress:
We have information on how many asteroids there are and if they could devastate us or not. We are about to have our first meeting with our mentor to discuss how we can model our project and what formulas we need to have. We are about to construct our first simulation using Java Python.

Expected Results:
We expect to be able to simulate how asteroids pass our planet and how if they did not have enough escape velocity, would crash into us. Then we would have something divert it without causing more trouble on us.

Team Members:

Ryan Martinez Thomas Warren Wilia Williams

Sponsoring Teacher: Anita Nugent

Introduction
Hi,

My name is Nico Marrero. I am a computer scientist working at New Mexico Tech. See the biography on my User Page.

Progress
You have chosen a neat topic. Why worry about the zombie apocalypse when an asteroid may wipe us all out first? :-) Since you haven't started modeling yet, I don't have many comments here, but have some questions to consider in the Model section. I think you have chosen a great topic to model and I hope it ends up being as fun as it sounds.

Mentors
I'm glad your group has a mentor! I think that that is really important and will make this project much easier for you. Good on ya!

Model
You mention two different aspects to your model - asteroids and (for all intents and purposes) "anti-asteroids." I think you explain what you want to model for the asteroids clearly enough, but I didn't see much information on what you would be modeling for the "anti-asteroids;" are you modeling one specific object or will you vary the parameters of what you will use to try to divert the asteroid? Modeling an object of similar size and density to the asteroid is all well and good, but what if we decided to use a giant twinkie to divert the asteroid, how big would it need to be? I realize a giant twinkie is a bit unreasonable, but I think you probably get my point. What sort of resources do we have here on earth that would work?

How are you going to verify and validate your model? That will be something we will be looking for at the Expo. How can you be sure your model is correct? What external support can you find for your model's conclusions?

Face to Face Evaluation
Your next milestone is a face to face evaluation in February. Here is a link to the rubric so you can prepare: face to face rubric

Rubrics
The judges will use these rubrics to evaluate your projects at the end of the year. Use them as checklists for what you need to communicate to the judges.


 * Expo Judges Rubric
 * Finalist Judges Rubric