Teams in Engineering Service



Teams in Engineering Service

Middle School Environmental Education Team

Winter 2010

Zachary Alsagoff

Jeff Chang

Shih-Paul Chen

Raj Khatri

Brent Lee

Zachary Lerman

Divine Mon

Kristen Nguyen

Joshua Ramos

Alex Tiscareno

Alan Toledo

Max Twogood

TA: Julianna Wang

Advisor: Jan Kleissl

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction ZACH L, PAUL 3

2. Quarter Goals ZACH L, PAUL 3

3. Handheld PM Sensor ZAC A, ALEX, JOSH 4

Quarterly Update 4

Background 4

ADC Program 4

Assembly 5

Vernier Sensor Attachment 6

4. Outdoor PM Sensor JEFF …………………………………………. …8

5. Lesson Plan Development 9

Front Row Fiasco ALAN 9

Blown Away MAX 10

Shell Shocked BRENT 10

6. Classroom Visits RAJ, DIVINE 11

Introduction 11

Coordinating Visits 11

Contacts 12

I-Test Teacher Visits .13

Outreach Beyond Teacher Visits 13

7. Budget KRISTEN 14

8. Appendix 14

ADC Source Code 15

1. INTRODUCTION

The main objective of the Teams in Engineering Service (TIES) Middle School Environmental Education (MSEE) team is to inspire middle school students to find careers in science and engineering. Studies have shown that this is the age group where interest in science and engineering in students take the most dramatic downturn, especially in females. In today’s world, being environmentally aware has taken on a new role in society, so by establishing the foundation of environmental awareness, students may engineer new methods to preserve the ecosystem in the future. To accomplish these goals, the MSEE team focused on a variety of different objectives. The first was to develop new environmentally based lesson plans for middles school students. This quarter, the team created lesson plans which deal with ocean acidification, corrosion of ocean life, and the reason why chalk is not used in classrooms. Next, each team member visited middle school classrooms participating in the I-TEST program and assisted the teachers in performing the experiments that have been developed in the past. Lastly, the MSEE team focused on the repair and improvement of a recently fabricated device designed to sense particulate matter.

2. QUARTER GOALS

← Develop new lesson plans and present them to host teachers

← At least two Classroom visits per team member

← Improvement and repair of additional handheld PM sensors

← Re-coding the outdoor PM sensor and making it operational

← Participation in the Science Olympiad

← Participation in the San Diego Science Alliance

3. HANDHELD PARTICULATE MATTER (PM) SENSOR

Quarterly Update

One of the challenges this quarter was coming up with a solution to add an enclosure for the handheld PM sensor’s battery. This was solved by affixing the bottom covers with screws to ensure the 9V batteries were held securely within the casing.

Looking into the sensors, it was found that they were unable power on. After labeling the three current handheld PM sensors as I, II, and III, new battery replacements fixed the problems for labeled sensors I and III. The batteries are prone to drain, so in the meantime, the sensors were plugged into an AC outlet in the wall. This is not a permanent solution as the sensors will ideally be used away from outlets for some experiments.

Further analysis of sensor II determined that it had a faulty LCD display. This most probable cause was because of the poor soldering job, which overheated the circuit on the LCD. The solution to this was ordering a new screen from PARALLAX and installing it. After installation, it appears to be functioning with the exception of its outputted readings. The solution can be found by uploading the code for the handheld PM sensors located in the appendix.

Background

Air quality is becoming more of an environmental concern due to the advancement and utilization of products and procedures. Many of these products emit pollutants that are deemed unhealthy, if not hazardous, to one’s personal health. Automobiles, for instance, emit carbon monoxide that is a colorless and tasteless yet highly toxic gas. Combustion pollutants from burning fossil fuels can contribute to birth defects. Cigarette smoking as well as passive smoking provokes higher risks of asthma. Even common beauty supplies such as hairsprays contain many chemicals that result with various forms of irritation and nausea. Introducing students to air quality education at a younger age can teach awareness of these pollutants and, perhaps, inspire them to pursue and generate newer, environmentally -friendly products and procedures.

This TIES team is focused on developing a particulate matter (PM) sensor to accompany lesson plans on air quality. The main goal is to produce a light and portable system that allows students to manipulate and retrieve live data of the ambient air quality. This sensor is able to detect solid particles, such as dust and pollen, within a 1 to 10couple micrometers in size. This quarter the work on the sensors was mainly centered on improving the enclosures, especially the bottom where the battery was held, along with testing for functionality. Unexpectedly, one of the sensors LCD screens died, so it was replaced with a new one, as well as re-soldering the wires.

ADC Program

Some slight changes were made to the components on the newly built sensor. In particular, a much smaller ADC was used. Since we purchased a smaller ADC, we needed to alter the stamp controller program to display the measurements. , whether displaying eEach individual measurement can be displayed or displaying an average of the measurements taken within a time frame can be shown. The pin outs from the stamp controller side are as follows:

[pic]

Use of PM Sensor:

1. The sensor must be vertical i.e. the screen should be pointed towards the ceiling.

2. The screen should never read 0. If it does, the wire from the sensor to the ADC chip is loose and needs be reattached, even if it looks fine.

3. Air flows from the bottom to the top so whatever source is being measured should be on the bottom.

4. The output of the sensor will not stabilize. Results it gives have been tested against a high grade PM counter. The output of the handheld sensor ranges around an accurate count.

5. Make sure to use provided charger to recharge batteries.

Assembly

[pic][pic]

This quarter, we used a different Analog to Digital converter (ADC) than in previous quarters. The previous design called for a 20-bit ADC, which was more than enough, so we went with an 8-bit ADC as a simpler model. We connected all the pins to the stamp controller by connecting VDD to pins 8 and 5 and grounding pins 1, 3, and 4. We connected the remaining pins to pins connected to the stamp controller as they are used for the data in and out of the clock.

For the LCD Backlight Screen, we soldered wires to the RX, 5V and GND parts of the backside of the screen. This allowed us to connect the wires to the stamp controller so that it could receive an input and output to display desired results.

We needed to find connectors for the particulate matter sensor because we were missing some sets. We purchased a set of 4 pin and 3 pin connectors as shown and are figuring out ways to incorporate longer strands of wires to connect it to the stamp controller.

We assembled two more enclosures to hold the particulate matter sensors. We used 3/16-inch clear acrylic to assemble front panels and covers. Each component was glued together using acrylic cement/glue. The hardware was screwed in using 4-40 machine bolts and the complementing nuts and washers. The cover and battery plate are screwed to the front panel using 4-40 machine bolts. Each hole was tapped for these bolts; not tapping the holes can possibly result with cracked acrylic.

Vernier Sensor Attachment

An idea we investigated this quarter was possibly adapting the handheld particulate matter sensors to use the Vernier LabQuest handheld unit. While the idea was feasible, the LabQuest software would have to be customized whenever using the sensor. The analog voltage from the sensor could be displayed on the screen for the Vernier LabQuest unit, but special parameters would have to be set on the unit to convert the voltage into a particulate matter count. This would be an added level of complexity when using the LabQuest unit. This would have little value considering that the group already has standalone sensor units.

4. OUTDOOR PARTICULATE MATTER (PM) SENSOR

Quarterly Update

The team has been developing a weather-proof particulate matter sensor suitable for outdoor use. The sensor measures temperature, humidity and particulate matter density in the air and broadcasts the data over Bluetooth. Throughout past quarters, the team has attempted to integrate a USB data logger into the sensor. The data logger would record and store the data in a USB flash drive. However, due to the limited input/output capability of the microcontroller, it was very challenging to incorporate a reliable data logger that doesn’t require frequent resets of the microcontroller.

Solution

A companion computer program to fetch, timestamp and store the data was proposed as an alternative solution to complement the outdoor sensor. The computer program can be run on a computer with Bluetooth capability. The data can be displayed on screen in real time or stored as a comma-separated-value (CSV) file to be ported into spreadsheet software later for future analysis. A command-line interface provides user options on where to store the file, how many measurements to take, and whether to append to an existing file or to replace it.

Use Cases

A typical scenario of the outdoor sensor consists of relocating installing the sensor to at a local participating middle school in San Diego and , collecting continuous data, and moving the sensor to a new location. The period over which data is collected may range from a few minutes to a few hours. Identical sensors installed at other schools will allow The main objective of the sensor is to comparinge air quality amongst schools, rather than over long periods of time and during specific events such as forest fires..

Development Requirements

The requirements features of the program are listed below in priority from high to low:

1) Ability to receive data from sensors over Bluetooth

2) Timestamp the measurements

3) Store the data collected

4) User interface to display data collected

Sample Output

A sample output file from the program as well as a graph created from the data is provided below.

|Date |Time |Particles per | |Temperature (deg C) |Humidity |

| | |Liter | | | |

|3/2/2010 |16:33:55 |137 |20 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:33:56 |135 |25 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:33:58 |121 |14 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:00 |134 |21 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:02 |128 |25 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:11 |157 |15 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:12 |140 |19 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:14 |110 |20 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:16 |130 |52 |21 |54 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:18 |207 |34 |21 |55 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:20 |194 |45 |21 |57 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:22 |225 |42 |21 |60 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:24 |183 |24 |21 |64 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:26 |158 |26 |21 |66 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:28 |244 |45 |21 |68 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:30 |264 |55 |21 |70 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:32 |270 |50 |21 |71 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:34 |281 |40 |21 |72 |

|3/2/2010 |16:34:36 |297 |32 |21 |73 |

[pic]

Known Issues

Due to time constraints, many issues were not addressed in the development of the companion program. The program was written in C, one of the most portable programming languages available. In theory, the program should work flawlessly in other UNIX-like operating systems. However, the program relies on low-level serial communication with the sensor’s Bluetooth transmitter and was never tested on operating systems other than Mac OS X, the platform on which it was developed. The program may also require some reconfiguration, available in the user interface, mainly because of the differences of how device files are implemented by various operating systems.

5. LESSON PLAN DEVELOPMENT

This quarter the team was divided into three sub-groups; each sub-group would work on a separate project. One team worked on the outdoor PM sensor, a second team worked on the handheld PM sensor, and the third team worked on developing new lesson plans for the middle school students. Please note that all three lesson plans that have been developed this quarter can be found in the appendix.

“Front Row Fiasco”

One of the goals this quarter in terms of developing lesson plans was to incorporate the handheld particulate matter sensor. The team developed the handheld PM sensor to help students understand particulate matter and its effects on the environment, yet we have no set method of demonstrating this to the classroom. The lesson plan “Front Row Fiasco” achieves this by incorporating particulate matter that students deal with on a daily basis, chalk dust.

The lesson plan is designed to see how the concentration of particulate matter changes with increasing distance as well as time. The materials for the lesson plan include, chalk, anti-dust chalk, erasers, the particulate matter sensors, a stop watch, and a meter stick. One particulate matter sensor is placed at the “front row” of the class room while another is placed in the back. Chalk dust is then created at the front of the classroom by clapping the chalk dust erasers pre-loaded with chalk dust. The concentration of particulate matter is to then be recorded for both sensors at different time intervals. Students can then conclude how factors in the environment such as the distance from a construction site or forest fire, as well as wind affects the concentration of particulate matter. The complete lesson plan is provided in section 7.2. in the appendix.

“Blown Away”

“Blown Away” is the first experiment in a two-part lesson plan. The purpose of the lab is to show how atmospheric carbon can dissolve in Earth’s bodies of water and increase their acidity, ultimately affecting the organisms that live there. “Blown Away” is specifically designed to show that atmospheric carbon dioxide can decrease the pH of ocean water. To demonstrate this we incorporated the use of the Vernier LabQuests, which hold the ability to plotcan sense and graph a multitude of property changes over timevariety of parameters, including pH.

This experiment consists of three trials: a control using room temperature tap water, one experimental using room temperature “seawater,” and one experimental using cold “seawater.” The “seawater” is made using ordinary fish tank sea salt and tap water in order to simulate actual seawater with a pH of about 8.1.The students will obtain their solutions from the teacher in beakers and return to their desks with a partner. One student will blow bubbles through a straw into one of the solutions, while the other student will hold the pH probe connected to the Vernier LabQuest in the solution. The LabQuest will plot a live pH versus time graph. After, and once the two minutes are done the students will be able to record their data and repeat the process for the next two trials. The cold trial is simulated by doing the trial in an ice bath. Ideally one student should always do the breathing to get accurate results, but its fine to let them switch roles if they want to.

This experiment is catered more towards 7th and 8th graders because it introduces basic concepts behind chemistry, such as what a chemical reaction is and what reagents and products are. Prelab questions and key terms are presented at the beginning of the lab to reinforce the concepts that are brought up in the lab introduction and outline appropriate teacher-student pre-lab discussion. Students will be able to hypothesize what they expect to see, and upon completion of the experiment they will have post lab questions to help them understand what they learned, how this is related to the actual environment, and they will brainstorm preventative measures that can be taken to reduce ocean acidification.

“Shell Shocked”

“Shell Shocked” is the second part to the two-part lesson plan. The purpose of the experiment is to demonstrate the effects of ocean acidification on the shelled organisms in oceans. Concepts from the “Blown Away” experiment will be put to use and the students will use their gained knowledge into predicting the effects of vinegar (a proxy for more acidic ocean water) on mussels. Students will be asked pre-laboratory questions, prompting them to think about what shells are made of and how an increase in carbon in the atmosphere will affect ocean pH. Over the course of this experiment, the students will realize the effects of increased carbon in the oceans (ocean acidification) on sea life.

The students will be provided with a bag of pre-treated mussel shells and a bag of untreated mussel shells. In this experiment, vinegar will act as the experimental factor and the seawater will act as the control. The students will place one untreated mussel half into vinegar and the other half into seawater and observe and record for a 30 minute period. The pre-treated shells included one low short exposure (4-6 hours) mussel shell and one longhigh exposure (16-18 hours) mussel shell. The students will be asked to compare the short and longlow exposure and high exposure mussels to the results they receive. The students will compare the differences in appearance, weight, translucency, and other physical factors. The lab also incorporates the use of the Vernier LabQuest and the pH probe. Students will measure the pH of the seawater and the vinegar while also using the timer within the Vernier LabQuest.

Upon finishing the experiment, the students will answer questions related to the lab and write a conclusion based on their hypothesis and what they learned. They will also come up with possible solutions for preventing or mitigating ocean acidification.

5. CLASSROOM VISITS

Introduction

Throughout the quarter, TIES students participate in the project “Information Technology-Engineering and Environmental Education Tools” (ITEST[1]). ITEST is lead by UCSD Jacob’s School of Engineering, in partnership with the San Diego Super Computer Center (SDSC). ITEST works with San Diego middle school teachers to develop hands-on environmental science experiments, utilizing the Vernier LabQuest handheld sensors.[2] TIES students attend middle school classes during when these experiments are conducted by the teachers, and providinge technical and scientific support to the teachers while using the LabQuest sensors. The lesson plans and LabQuest sensors are designed to spark student interest in science and technology as well as increase student awareness about current environmental issues.

Coordinating Visits

A team member in TIES will be assigned as the teacher visit coordinator at the beginning of each quarter. The coordinator is responsible for arranging the visit schedule which best accommodates both teachers and TIES students. The following is a guideline on how the organization can be done efficiently:

1) Access ITEST coordination website to obtain equipment rotation schedule. The rotation schedule provides information on which teacher(s) will have the equipment during which week(s).

2) Contact teacher(s). Contact the teacher(s) a week in advance to inquire their class schedule (day and time). This is done primarily on email, and preferably on Monday to give the teachers time to respond.

3) Create a poll online. After obtaining teachers’ schedule, create an online poll (). The rest of the team will provide their availability using the poll, and the coordinator can decide on the visit time that best accommodate both the teacher(s) and the TIES students. The poll is generally created on Wednesday.

4) Inform the teacher(s) of the visit times. After obtaining the result from the poll, the coordinator will contact the teacher(s) with the visiting times for the following week. This is also done via email, preferably early Thursday so the teacher(s) will have time to respond before the weekend. Ask the teacher(s) to respond in email as a confirmation on the schedule.

5) Confirm with teammates. Upon receiving the confirmation from the teacher(s), inform teammates with date, time, and location of the visit.

6) Fill out a participation survey. After each visit, participated TIES students are required to fill out an online survey form for the ITEST research team to gather data about the lessons.[3] Additionally, participants need to answer the following questions to complete the survey process:

a. Teacher Name:

b. Observation Date:

c. How prepared was the teacher to lead the lesson you observed? (Choose one)

i. Extremely prepared – he/she had seemed to have reviewed the lesson plan ahead of time, the lesson seemed to be implemented according to a clear plan, and the teacher experienced few (if any) hiccups

ii. Generally prepared – he/she seemed to have reviewed for the lesson and seemed to have a general plan, but the lesson would have benefited from more specific planning

iii. Unprepared – he/she had not reviewed the lesson beforehand and/or did not seem to have a clear plan for the lesson

iv. Why did you choose that rating? (No more than a few sentences)

Contacts

Questions regarding overall ITEST operation

Julie Humphrey jchumphr@ucsd.edu

Equipment Allocation

Ezequiel Noyola enoyola@ucsd.edu

Teachers involved in the Middle School classroom visits for 2009-2010

|Teacher Name |School Name |Contact Info |

|Michelle Thorsen |Dehesa Charter School |michellethorsen@ |

|Pamela Goalwin |Julian Charter School |pgoalwin@ |

|Wayne Strong |Foothills Christian High School |wayne.strong@ |

|Rachel Poland |Innovation Middle School |rpoland@ |

|Ben Vosburgh |Innovation Middle School |bvosburgh@ |

|Madeline Hardson |DePortola Middle School |mhardson@ |

|Sarah Flynn |Christian Junior High School |sflynn@ |

|Geoff Birch |Guajome Park Academy |BirchGe@ |

|Michael Mertz |Muirlands Middle School |mmertz@ |

|Lindsay Hellman |Guajome Park Academy |HellmanLi@ |

|Marj Atkisson |UCHS |matkisson@ |

|Arlene Peck |Guajome Park Academy |peckar@ |

|Kamyar Pourhamidi |Correia Middle School |kpourhamidi@ |

|Catherine Peavy |I-High Online |cpeavy@ |

I-Test Teacher Visits This Quarter

This quarter we visited Ben Vosburgh’s class at Innovation middle school. The class was an elective class so the students were really interested in science and were pretty well behaved. Below is a log of all the teacher visits conducted by the team this quarter as well as who attended the Science Olympiads

|Student Name |Teacher Visits |Science Olympiads |

|Alan Toledo |0 |1 |

|Zachary Alsagoff |3 |0 |

|Zach Lerman |2 |2 |

|Divine Mon |2 |1 |

|Jeff Chang |1 |1 |

|Raj Khatri |3 |2 |

|Kristen Nguyen |2 |2 |

|Alex Tiscareno |1 |2 |

|Paul Chen |3 |2 |

|Brent Lee |2 |1 |

|Max Twogood |2 |2 |

Outreach Beyond Teacher Visits

Besides doing teacher visits, the team tries to participate in various outreach activities throughout San Diego. This quarter our team participated in the San Diego Science Olympiad[4] held Saturday, February 6th and 20th, and the San Diego Science Alliance[5] held on March 10th.

This Science Olympiad competition requires teams from different schools to compete in various science events, ranging from creating a bridge to designing a battery run car. Arthur Zhang, a UCSD graduate student here at UCSD, volunteered to be an event captain at the competition. He asked for volunteers from MSEE to be assistant event captains, helping out during the day of the event. Our responsibilities included setting up for the competition as well as judging events and supervising the kids.

In the Science Alliance festival this year, our team set up a booth where we had team members demonstrating how ultraviolet rays from the sun affect your skin. Utilizing the Vernier LabQuest apparatus and the UV sensor, we showed students how sunscreen blocks a significant amount of UV rays, emphasizing its importance in prolonged outdoor activities. We also made the UV lab tie into engineering, by talking to students about the wave properties of UV rays, and how they are either reflected, transmitted, or absorbed.

6. BUDGET

This quarter our team had a $500 budget. The expenses for this quarter’s budget were allocated to three teams and lesson plans. Table XXBelow is shows the budget for this quarter and an itemizedation of the expenses:

|Budget Report |

|Item |Price |

|LED screen |$24.99 |

|9V batteries |$7.46 |

|Poster |$13.99 |

|Team bonding event |$47.50 |

|Total (Spent) |$93.94 |

7. Appendix

All drawings, models, and lesson plans from this quarter can be found on the MSEE page on the TIES website.

1i. ADC Source Code

' {$STAMP BS2e}

' {$PBASIC 2.5}

'Program to convert analog sample to digital sample and output through LCD screen

DIO CON 9 'Data in/out line on the stamp

CLK CON 10 'Time communication between stamp and chip

CS CON 11 'CS on ADC

adc VAR WORD 'Data read from chip goes here

conc VAR WORD 'actual concentration in part/L

counter VAR BYTE

avg VAR BYTE(20)

TxPin CON 0

Baud19200 CON 32

HIGH TxPin

PAUSE 1000

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [22]

PAUSE 500

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [12]

PAUSE 500

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["Turning on"]

PAUSE 5000

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [12]

PAUSE 500

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["Sensor warm up", 13, "60 sec left"]

counter = 60

DO WHILE (counter > 0)

PAUSE 1000

IF counter = 10 THEN

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [149," "]

ENDIF

counter = counter - 1

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [148, DEC counter]

LOOP

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [12]

PAUSE 500

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["Ready to take readings"]

PAUSE 1000

main:

counter = 0

'Take 5 readings from ADC

DO WHILE counter ................
................

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