matthias+downs

hi my name is Matthias Andrew Downs (MAD). The University i want to attend is still in questioning, but what i want to major and minor in is as clear is day. I want to major in criminal justice and/or Military intelligence, and minor in law or as close to law as the minor can get me. The reason is I've always had a passion since i was little to serve my country and and serve my community. So that is why i want to go into the Marine Corps or the Us Air Force as an officer and stay in for at least 10 years, and when i get out to become a either a police officer or a lawyer.

reflections- between the days of Monday and Thursday We came to together as one unit to help mrs. johnson during one of the days during the week. When we were working on our primary objective we did the following - discuss on what exactly what we are building- (like are we building a game table or regular table because as a group we choice to build a table) - review over a few sketches of ideas for what the table might look like-( still in the discussion process) - set up a joint operation with the other team who is building a chair-( they we be building a chair that would be like a piece of furniture that would be suitable for the table)


 * Rover- March 21-22, 2011**

For the past few days I and the other classmates has been working on one of the many projects that we will be tasked this week. The task at hand was to build a moon rover. We were fortunate to get a chance to look at how the final product should look so we had a good grasp on how it should be made. Even with this knowledge this was no walk in the park. Sure we built the rover without much of a problem and it looked good when it was just sitting there, but the problem we faced was that it wouldn't go without having it flip and if it did move the wheels were moving so fast that it would bounce causing the rover not to move that far. So we had to figure out how we were going to modify our rover so that it could conquer this problem. Well what I did was basically stick with the sharp edge wheel design, but trimmed them down. Also I lower the front end down a little more so that when it is launched the air going over the top is more than the air going below, which if i'm correct will keep the rover down or at least lower the chance of it flipping. Lastly I added a few ounces of weight to the front of the rover to keep it from flipping as well. So with all of these modifications my rover was complete. When i tested it on the carpet (note most of tests after the modifications was on carpet) the wheels dug in and the weight in the front caused it from flipping and because of this caused my rover to move a very reasonable distance. So now I need to test it on tiled floor so i can call this a complete success, but for the moment i would say that this is a success.

Thank you for your great post. Sandra C. Johnson.


 * Kicker- March 23-24, 2011**

(March 23,2011) As we progress through the week design squad week continues, and the next task on our agenda was to build a kicker. Or in other words we had to build a device that is capable of launching an object ( in our test we used a golf ball) over a distance of 24 inches or 2 feet into a cup. So it's almost like miniature golf and were trying to putt. Unlike the first project where we got the chance to see how it was built this project basically had us working in the dark. Because there was no video to refer to, not really a detailed plan on how to build one, and only sample pictures to work from. So the brainstorming process took a little more time then the past few days. After much contemplation I choose to take the route of focusing more on control than on power because it was shown that it really doesn't take much force to get the ball rolling and once it starts rolling it will get a reasonable distance. So with this knowledge I began work on my launcher. Once completed the test was under way. It passed the launch test, It passed the accuracy test, and passed the reliably test. So it was a success because it completed what we were tasked to do so i would say it's a success. Even though I do want to modify just a little because i believe that with a few changes it will preform and look a whole lot better, but i will chalk this up on the board as another successful build. (March 24, 2011) today all a really did was reinforce my launching device and extended the ramp my kicker was more accurate and got the ball in the cup after one shot. So i do believe that with those results this project would be consider a success.