<< WEEK 7

2004-08-09, Monday
Daniela Buchman
Jeff O'Donohue

Today we all got up bright and early and got to work at 7am, and then we spent an hour fixing up the glider up. We then took it to Roble Field. Bob Parks and Mike Luvara came to help us. Bob set up a really cool radio controller and we got our pterosaur up and flying. Mike ran the pterosaur and launched it. We then went and had a meeting about what we needed to fix later that day. We ended up hollowing out the head and putting in weights to move the CG forward, making the elevators bigger, and making the range of motion for the wing tips larger. In addition, we fixed up and catalogued all of our previous gliders.

2004-08-11, Wednesday
Marianne Kvitko
Julia Lee

The penultimate day of our project was very busy and exciting. We met at 7 a.m. and were (or pretended to be) surprised with Izzy's bagels, courtesy of Margot. After a quick breakfast, we headed to Lake Lagunita for day 2 of flight testing with Mike Luvara. Mike was impressed with our brilliant alignment corrections. We conducted a few successful flights before realizing that the head/neck asymmetry was preventing the yaw capability, especially towards the right direction. Luckily, a temporary solution was found by securing the head in place with a rubberband. Later, the group found a second, higher hill to launch the pterosaur from. There were a few trees in the way, but Axel managed some nice throws, and Mike manuevered the pterosaur out of harm's way. After a record-breaking long flight, the membrane team tested their creation, which failed miserably due to lack of adequate tension. After lunch, a few people worked on straightening the head and neck, and constructing extra vertical tails in varying sizes. The rest of us started compiling the final report and parent presentation, due Thursday. At the end of the day, a new membrane wing was made, the spare fuselage was painted, and the head joint was fixed. To celebrate our achievments, 7 of us ordered pizza and watched an educational movie, Jurassic Park III. We're working hard to finish the presentation and report in time, so that Erica won't get durability tested.