PB3

1.

The majority of the feedback I got said that my topic was already really narrowed down. Some of the feedback gave some ideas on how I could modify the topic, but most of it would have made the topic broader. I could possibly narrow it down into a specific method for life support, but that might make it too narrow that i might not be able to find enough information on it. I think my topic is pretty good and I’m not really going to change it.

2.

Is it possible to combine multiple life support methods into one more efficient system?

3.

Gruenwald, J. (2016). A hybrid plasma technology life support system for the generation of oxygen on mars: Considerations on materials and geometry. Acta Astronautica, 123, 188-191. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2016.03.021

Verseux, C., Baque, M., Lehto, K., de Vera, J., Rothschild, L., & Billi, D. (2016). Sustainable life support on mars - the potential roles of cyanobacteria. International Journal of Astrobiology, 15(1), 65-92. doi:10.1017/S147355041500021X

Tong, L., Li, M., Hu, E., Fu, Y., Xie, B., & Liu, H. (2012). The fluxes of carbon, nitrogen and water in the multibiological life support system. Ecological Engineering, 43, 91-94. doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2012.01.023

Xie, B., Zhu, G., Liu, B., Liu, G., Liu, H., Su, Q., Wang, M. (2017). The water treatment and recycling in 105-day bioregenerative life support experiment in the lunar palace 1. Acta Astronautica, 140, 420-426. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2017.08.026

Sakurai, M., Sone, Y., Nishida, T., Matsushima, H., & Fukunaka, Y. (2013). Fundamental study of water electrolysis for life support system in space. Electrochimica Acta, 100, 350-357. doi:10.1016/j.electacta.2012.11.112

Fu, Y., Li, L., Xie, B., Dong, C., Wang, M., Jia, B., Liu, H. (2016). How to establish a bioregenerative life support system for long-term crewed missions to the moon or mars.Astrobiology, 16(12), 925-936. doi:10.1089/ast.2016.1477

Hager, P., Czupalla, M., & Walter, U. (2010). A dynamic human water and electrolyte balance model for verification and optimization of life support systems in space flight applications.Acta Astronautica, 67(9), 1003-1024. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2010.06.001


Keywords:

Life Support, Space, Mars, Water, Oxygen, Bioregenerative, Plasma Technology, Recycle, Electrolysis, Balance, Treatment

Elevator Pitch

Professor Okutsu, I’m Jacob Myers an engineering student here at Abington. I've done some research into you and your field of research, and I find it very interesting. I’ve seen some of your previous publications, and that you have worked with some of NASA’s mission studies. I saw that most of your research was devoted to human exploration of Mars, and I figured what more important than life support when it comes to manned missions. So I was thinking that we could work together on an ACURA project involving the design of a life support system. I have already done a little research, and I found 2 potential methods we could implement into our design. One involves the recycling of solid waste into oxygen, and the other involves the recycling of liquid waste into water and nitrogen. I figure we could try to combine the two methods to create a more productive and efficient system. Hopefully you give this some thought, and I look forward to potentially working with you in the future. Thank you for your time.

Elevator Pitch Assignment

Part 1: WP2 Rubric

• Completion of powerpoint
• Well put together presentation (effectively and clearly explain your powerpoint)
• Topic is a “small nesting doll”, and not a broad topic
• Research of chosen topic
• Understanding of your two scholarly articles, and all of their different aspects needed for the presentation
• Formatting

Part 2: What makes an elevator pitch an elevator pitch

I think the most important aspect of an elevator pitch is that it is always some kind of proposal, and you are trying to convince someone of something. The next thing that defines an elevator pitch is that they can only last for around 30 seconds to 2 minutes, because the whole idea behind it is that you have to give your pitch in an elevator and need to be finished before the ride is over. They usually consist of an introduction, description, and a request all within 30sec-2min. The audience can vary depending on the request of the elevator pitch, it could be anything such as a potential employer, investor, or client. The is one thing in common with all of the audiences which is they all have the ability to grant your request.




Part 3: Examples

Strengths:

• Made good first impression
• Introduced herself while also complimenting her audience at the same time
• She explained her skills and experience very clearly, and very quickly
• She brought up her request without making it seem really forced and awkward

Strengths:

• Got to the point immediately
• Described his business and its objective very well
• Gave many reasons as to why his company is a good choice

Struggles:

• Felt very forced and awkward
• The way he was talking seemed pretty aggressive

Strengths:

• Straight to the point
• Describes the problem his company is solving
• States exact request

Struggles

• Could have been a little longer. Could have used an extra 10-20 seconds to try and convince his audience better

One difference I noticed was that the first elevator pitch was someone trying to get an internship, while the other two were company CEO’s trying to get investors. The most obvious difference is that the first pitch was very calm, while the other two seemed very aggressive. I think I like the first one the most from that standpoint, and I think it is more like the elevator pitch we will have to create.

PB2B

Part 1: Two Scholarly Articles

[1] R. Shi, F. Zhang and Z. Zhang, "Recycling oxygen from spaceflight solid waste for life support system: Potential of pyrolysis process," Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 334, pp. 479-486, 2018.

[2] S. Deng, B. Xie and H. Liu, "The recycle of water and nitrogen from urine in bioregenerative life support system," Acta Astronautica, vol. 123, pp. 86-90, 2016.




Part 2: Content

Both articles focused on life support systems that could be used for manned space missions. The first article focused more on the aspect of recycling oxygen from solid waste, while the second article focused more on the recycling of water from water waste. Both articles researched and studied the concepts in very similar ways. They both conducted experiments where they actually recycled waste in oxygen gas and water. In the first article they would expose the waste to high temperatures, anywhere from 400 to 800 degrees celcius, and this would leave them with 3 different products. They were left with a charred solid that contained between 7 to 10 percent oxygen, a liquid that contained 30 to 50 percent oxygen, and a gas that contained 50 to 60 percent oxygen. The yield of oxygen changed based on the temperature that the waste was exposed to. In the second article they used a combination of hydrolysis and distillation to recycle water and nitrogen from water waste. They discovered that nitrogen recovery was the most efficient at higher temperatures and lower pH levels, also they found out that they could recover about 92 percent of water but believe it's possible to reach 100 percent. Also they each made many calculations on the topic to see what theoretically should happen and compare it to the actual results. Both articles describe the concepts pretty similarly. They go into a lot of detail about the process they go through to recycle the waste, and they describe the entire process from beginning to end. Both articles posed the question of how efficient the methods were, and how well they could recycle the waste. The first article determined that they could recycle anywhere from 60-7% of oxygen from the different types of waste, and the second article determine they could recycle around 92% or water from liquid waste.




Part 3: Conventions

The most obvious convention is the jargon because with these kinds of topics there are a lot of technical words and phrases that you have no idea what the meaning is at first glance. Also both of the articles ar split up into multiple sections, and some containing subsections. These sections usually consisted of the research methods that were used to study the topic. Also i'm pretty sure every single scholarly article that exists has an abstract and a conclusion. Some affordances of the articles was the use of charts and graphs. Both of the articles had a lot of graphs to show the results, and the ranged from pie graphs, line graphs, bar graphs, and histograms. Another affordance that I think was pretty unique to these articles was the use of formulas and calculations. Both articles described the calculations they used, and provided the formulas. I think the author's purpose for both of these articles was to persuade the reader to think that the method they were researching is the best option for life support. The main audience of these articles are other scholars in this field of study. This is very obvious since there is a lot of jargon, and anyone else wouldn’t understand what they were reading. Also both articles explain how these are new methods that could be used on manned space missions, which kind of tells you that they were written for other people to use as research in the future. One article even explains how there are other minerals that could be recycled, and that further research should be conducted. The writing style is very formal and informative, because it is well put together and every sentence is just information. The authors of both articles structured them very similar. Both started with an introduction to the concept, and then moved on to the methods of research. Them they explained the results of the research, and finished with their conclusion.




Part 4: Interesting Aspects

What struck me as the most important aspect of the articles was the results and efficiency of the methods. I think it was amazing how the researcher in the second article were able to recover around 92 percent of water from the waste, and the fact that they believe if there was more testing done that they could recover 100 percent of the water. Also they explained how there are a lot more elements and minerals that can be recovered, and that more research should be done on it. That would make that process overall a lot better, and would allow us to recover the majority of the elements from waste through this method.

PB2A Parts 3,4,5

Part 3

• How could space suits be designed to support human life on mars?
• How could existing space suits be redesigned to be better or more efficient?
• How could a “Biosphere” be designed that would fully function?
• How could a “Biosphere” be designed that could easily be transported to mars?
• How could a new engine be designed for rockets that could function better or more efficiently?

Part 4

• Engineering
• Design
• Mars
• Space Suit
• Biosphere
• Rocket Engine
• Thrusters
• Space Helmet
• Survival
• Oxygen
• Life Support

Part 5

[1] C. L. Moore, "Technology development for human exploration of Mars," Acta Astronautica, vol. 67, (9), pp. 1170-1175, 2010.


[2] R. B. Malla, J. Gopal and J. Ahn, "Mechanical Behavior of Water Deionizing Granular Material Bed for Space Life Support Systems," Journal of Engineering Mechanics, vol. 139, (5), pp. 650-663, 2013.


[3] S. Aydogan-Cremaschi et al, "A novel approach for life-support-system design for manned space missions," Acta Astronautica, vol. 65, (3), pp. 330-346, 2009.


[4] R. Shi, F. Zhang and Z. Zhang, "Recycling oxygen from spaceflight solid waste for life support system: Potential of pyrolysis process," Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 334, pp. 479-486, 2018.


[5] S. Deng, B. Xie and H. Liu, "The recycle of water and nitrogen from urine in bioregenerative life support system," Acta Astronautica, vol. 123, pp. 86-90, 2016.

PB2A Parts 1,2

Engineering is the discipline I have chosen for this project. The professor I decided to pick was Masataka Okutsu. His main focuses of research are the design of space missions and flight vehicles. He has worked with NASA in the past on mission studies involving Europa and Cassini. Also he has worked with students on research missions about Mars, and high altitude CubeSat prototypes.


Something I find interesting about Okutsu’s research is human exploration of Mar. I think it would be cool to research things like how the space suit would be designed for survival on Mars, how you would design some type of building or structure for them to live in how how to get it there, and how the spacecraft would be designed to be able to take them there and back. Another thing I find interesting about his research is the design of spacecraft. I think it would be cool to research how they are made, and try to figure out ways to improve them.

WP1 Proposals

Biggest: Novel

      Second Biggest: Fantasy Novel

              Medium: Epic Fantasy Novel

                      Smallest: Lord of the Rings





Biggest: Article

       Second Biggest : Tutorial Article

               Medium: Gaming Tutorial Article

                       Smallest: Elite Dangerous Tutorial Articles


https://www.vrheads.com/ultimate-guide-elite-dangerous-zero-100m-credits-1
https://www.alpha-orbital.com/news/the-ultimate-guide-to-elite-dangerous-exploration



Biggest: Social Media

       Second Biggest: Twitter

               Medium: Science Based Twitter Accounts

                       Smallest: Neil deGrasse Tyson

PB1B Genre Generators

The first generator I analysed was the SCI generator, which generated computer science research papers. One thing I noticed immediately was every paper that was generated always had 6 sections to it. Each paper had an introduction, related works, results/evaluation, and conclusion section, and the other 2 sections seemed to be random. The results section always had a ton of graphs in it, and one of the random sections always had a flowchart in it like it was explaining how something worked. In the conclusion section there was a common theme of it explaining flaws or errors in what they did. After reading bits and pieces of multiple papers that were generated everything seemed completely random, and felt like nothing in the paper was related to each other. This made it feel like the paper was given a random title, and then the rest of it was filled with random computer science topics that had no correlation.

The second generator I looked at was the pandyland comic generator. This generator was very simple, all you did was hit generate and a three panel comic strip was generated. The same two characters were used for every comic, and something random always happened. Usually all of the panels in the comic weren't related to each other, which sometimes makes them funny and other times not. The first panel was always the two guys talking to each other, and the final two were anything from also talking to something unexpected happening. Most of the comics felt really absurd, because it would jump from one topic to another or it would have a surprising twist at the end. After a while the panels started to repeat themselves. This led me to believe that each panel had multiple different situations drawn for it, and then it would pick one at random for each panel.

The third generator that I examined was the meme generator. This wasn’t really a random generator like the others, it was more of a website that lets you create your own memes. The most noticeable thing about this generator is that it's all the old school style memes, where its an image that everyone knows and has one or two lines of text. The majority of the memes on the website are the same memes over and over again, and are are the iconic memes of the past. Most of the memes are ironic or are just puns. Something I noticed is every meme is almost its own sub-genre, and has its own conventions. For example the Bad Luck Brian meme is always he does something, and then something bad that is usually ironic or unexpected happens. The Philosoraptor, one of my all time favorites, always asks a question that is usually ironic or a pun. The Willy Wonka meme is always being sarcastic about something.

The generator that I found was a story generator. This generator makes you fill in a lot of things like adjectives, names, objects, locations, animals, and emotions, and then makes a story with all of them. The generator also will generate all of these thing for you to create a completely random story. Also you can choose things like the opening, conflict, and resolution of the story, and how they play out. Some of the stories created can be funny because it randomly puts together adjectives and nouns that you inputted, which can give you some really random things. For example in the story I generated it said things like solid newspaper, partying snakes, tame tortoises, and grateful rave. Depending on how you wanted the story to go, like it being violent or about a relationship, it would affect how the story was generated, such as my story was supposed to be violent and the generator made the characters fight.

My Generated Story: https://www.plot-generator.org.uk/zdeaqxs/clever-chris-blacksmith.html

PB1A Computer Craigslist Ads

The genre I picked was Craigslist Ads for computers. So, what make a computer ad a computer ad. Probably the most noticeable thing is price, after all it's the most important thing when it comes to ads. All of the ads had specified prices, but another convention I saw that went with this was negotiation. Some of the ads said there was room for negotiation with the price, and this was mostly due to the ads being from craigslist. Another important convention was the title of the ad, which was just the name of the computer. None of the ads that I saw did not use the name of the computer as the title. Every computer ad also showed pictures of the computer, and the pictures showed things like the screen, the keyboard, cables ports, accessories, and boxes. When it came to the audience the ads were either directed towards gamers, or to no one is particular. Many of the ads are designated as gaming PC’s, which indicates that it is directed towards gamers. The purpose of the ads is to influence you into buying the computer, it's kind of self explanatory. A convention that every computer ad had was describing all of the specs of the computer. One spec that the ads include is the CPU, and its described by things like the brand, model, hertz per second, and the amount of cores. Another spec is the computer's RAM, which is described as the amount, and type of RAM (e.g. DDR3, DDR4). GPU is another important spec, especially in ads directed towards gamers, and are described by brand, model, and the amount and type of VRAM (e.g. 16gb, GDDR5). Storage is another spec that is described as amount of space(e.g. 256gb, 1tb), and type of storage(Hard Drive vs Solid State Drive). The screen was also a spec, but mostly for just laptops, and was described by size, and resolution (1920x1080). All of the computer ads in the description included what operating system the computer was running, and some even said things like it’s the newest and best operating system available. Also the ads would tell you whether the computer has access to wifi, bluetooth, and what kind and how many of each kind of port it has. Some of the ads would say it is in perfect condition, it works great, or runs fast, and would say these thing throughout the entire ad. The ads would also tell you what was included with the computer if there was anything, for example mice, keyboards, monitors, headsets, charging cables, HDMI cables, and extension cords. One ad even talked about its competition, another computer for sale on different website. They explained what the differences between the computers was, and why his was better. Some of the ads included what they originally paid for the computer compared to what they are selling it for, I think this was done to make it seem like you were getting a good deal and entice you to buy it. The ads also included their contact information, so you could get in touch with them.

Examples

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/sys/d/apple-macbook-pro-13-great/6679768846.html

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/sys/d/intel-i7-gtx-1060-gaming/6682655686.html

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/sys/d/msi-tridenz-3-gaming-desktop/6682379868.html

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/sys/d/dell-xps-8700series-pc-2tb/6676714112.html

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/sys/d/dell-xps-studio-pc-500gb-14gb/6668054021.html

Annotation Styles

When I annotate I use a few different methods. Mostly I highlight or underline important stuff, write down when I agree or disagree with something, mark things I don’t understand or things I find interesting, also I make an annotation when I relate with something. Mostly when I don’t highlight stuff, I’ll write down questions or write what I think about it.

Somethings that other people tend to do things like summarizing paragraphs. They like to put things into their own words, so later they can go back and read it easier. Also they mark certain quotes that they may use in the future. Sometimes they write down where they experience something from the text in real life.

About Me

My name is Jacob Myers, and I am from Souderton PA. I decided to come to Penn State because it has one of the best engineering schools in the country, and I have always wanted to come here since I was a kid. Also I'm from Pennsylvania so it’s a little cheaper as well, which is always nice. Originally I was going to major in computer science, but after taking basically every computer science class in high school I decided against that. Then I figured I would major in astrophysics, because space is cool, physics is my favorite type of science, and my favorite scientist is Neil deGrasse Tyson. Although after realizing I would have to go to college for 4 more years and I would most likely just become a teacher for it, so I've also decided against that. Eventually I decided to do mechanical engineering because it was one of my top choices, and some people, like my brother, have influenced me towards it. I used to play football in high school, and I played right tackle, and nose guard. Eventually I had to stop because of a chronic knee injury. Some of my favorite hobbies are playing video games, fishing, hunting, and watching movies.