User:Zchill/enes100

Here is where I will put all my individual documentation for all enes100 introduction to engineering projects fall 2011.

Poppit
For Poppit I worked on gathering data on the average number of balloons per start up. My method consisted of grabbing screenshots of Poppit games I played for the class's Poppit statistics class. The screenshots were used to count the colors, and the number of colors were then put into a spreadsheet on Google Docs. The problems that I encountered was genetic. I am red blue color blind, and can not accurately distinguish between the blue balloons and the purple balloons. Rather than attempt to count the balloons and potentially skewing the data, I omitted them. The link to the Google Doc.
 * The analysis of the data written would be that there is a variance between the initial start up configuration, but if you took the average of the data the differences are negligible.

HAM Radio
I studied the radio FCC test requirements and location and time for the first week. We came back on Monday and put our heads together in an attempt to come up with a working problem. There was a lot to do with HAM and it was really a matter of finding what to focus on. We decided to try to get one of the radio kits to broadcast. I tested out a few of the radios and compiled data with my teammates and took home the radio kit book to study over the weekend, with the intent of figuring out how easy it would be to attach a microphone and begin to broadcast. That didn't go so well. Problems also arose when the radio kits only reached the FM spectrum which was far away from the airspace allocated for HAM radio. Addition problems with the antenna brought us to a dramatic rethink of our project. We all decided that building a foxhole radio was the way to go. I gathered a few materials from home (Wire hanger and tacks) to help with the build and acted as a gopher for the build of the radio. With the problem of Nick's headphones not wiring in properly we needed a backup headphone set. I brought in Apple headphones which were no better and we ended up cannibalizing the set that were already in the classroom. With the last week I looked over the test questions but had a busy weekend as always and when Chuck backed out and when Nick said that he was swamped too I took the opportunity to focus on other classes and do their homework.