Apollo 11

Apollo 11

Thursday 11 December 2014

December 2014- Minister of Education-Jan O'Sullivan

December 2014
 Well it's been a while and things have been pretty busy since going to NASA. We've been doing a lot of testing and a lot of late nights of working since then. We'll be back posting updates and other details about our progress and how work is going. One of our latest meetings with Minister of Education, Jan O'Sullivan. She was a pleasure to meet and seemed to have a keen interest in our project and how it may have a place in future space exploration. We will add a picture shortly and will come back with more updates. Thank you.

Monday 7 April 2014

                           Our meeting with Enda Kenny and Sean Kelly.
                           Sean Kelly launched his new campaign on Saturday the 5th April. 
Find out more about his campaign at    http://www.southernstar.ie

Friday 7 March 2014

March 7th

Just back from our meeting all went well. Probably the most enjoyable meeting we've ever been to an absolute pleasure.
From left to right: Gavin Doyle, Kevin Hanley, Jason Hannan, Mayor Kathleen Leddin, Johnathan Roche, Jamie O'Connell, Principal Eugene O'Brien and Councillor Maurice Quinlivan.

March 7th

Going to meet the Mayor of Limerick today Kathleen Leddin with Sinn Fein politician Maurice Quinlivan. A real honor to be called personally to meet them today on account of our achievements. We'll post more after our meeting. Thank you.
Here's an article about the experiment on Science.ie:
http://www.science.ie/science-news/student-space-experiment.html

Friday 28 February 2014

26th of February 

We were in "Irish Cement" today in Limerick. We got a tour around the factory by Pat Robinson who was a manger of the factory. He showed us how complicated it all was. He shown us all the machines and the demolition site they have it is 20 meters under ground. It was a really enjoyable experience.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

The Making of the Experiment

Tuesday 10 February

The process of making our experiment is:

1.Equip safety gear such as gloves, goggles etc.
2.Make sure all equipment is sterile and ready for use.
3.Check the weighing scale with the weight of the beaker for precise measurement.
4.We used the pressurised gas cleaner to make sure all previous components used in the silicon tube were erased.
5.We put the the stopper at the bottom of the tube and prepared the 2 clamps.
6.We applied the
 cement, then closed the clamp tightly.
7.We then applied the water with the syringe, then again closing the clamp tight.
8.Lastly we applied the sand of which had basalt fibers included.
9.We finished with inserting the top stopper and screwed it tightly for secure fitting.
10.We released the first clamp letting its components to begin mixing, they were the cement and water.
11.Once released shake the tube for about 2-3 mins.
12.Then remove the second clamp releasing the sand and fibers into the mix.
13.When all components are released shake vigorously for approximately 5 mins.

Our Equipment

Tuesday 10th February 

Reinforced Concrete In Space

Our experiment is almost ready for finalization the Equipment we are using is:

A Weighing Scale
Glass Funnel
Two Plastic Beakers
Syringe
Water
Sand
Cement
Basalt Fibers
Pressurised Gas Cleaner
Silicon tube
2 Clamps
2 Stoppers
Bungscrew

Friday 7 February 2014

February 7th

We had a busy few days between doing news interviews and being on TV we've not had much time to post, we went to the University of Limerick Tuesday for interviews with RTÈ and photographers for the local paper. We also received an award for our experiment from Dr. Norah Patten. On Wednesday two members of the team, Jason Hannan and Kevin Hanley went into Limerick's Live95fm for an interview with Joe Nash about the details of our experiment and how we came about doing it in the first place. A fantastic week filled with excitement stay tuned for more.

Monday 27 January 2014

January 27th

Today we are going to joined by Dr. Norah Patten to help us begin working on and testing our experiment. We will be testing the right amount of components to use and what ratios should be used in the completed experiment. We have been given five cylinder tubes made of silicon three of which will be used for testing and the other two will be sent to America to be used in the final experiment, then one of the tubes will be sent into space. We have also began research on the toxic levels of the cement to make sure it will be safe to use in the space station.

Tuesday 21 January 2014

January 21st

January 21st 2014

We are the TY team from St. Nessan's Community College, Limerick who won a competition "The Only Way Is Up" which is coordinated by Dr. Norah Patten, Communications and Outreach manager at IComp. It is funded by Science Foundation Ireland Discover Science and Engineering, the Irish Centre for Composites Research (IComp) and the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Limerick. It is enabled through a partnership at NanoRacks LLC and is supported at the National Centre for Excellence in Maths and Science Teaching and Learning (NCE-MSTL) and the Materials and Surface Science Institute (MSSI). We are the first team ever from Ireland to compete in and win this competition. Our team is called the "Space Cowboy Builders" and is made up of four team members Jason Hannan, Kevin Hanley, Johnathan Roche and Jamie O'Connell and our teacher Gavin Doyle. This is our first blog post having found out we were the winners of this competition. We will be posting live news feeds and updates on our experiment regularly via Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. Our experiment will include the Effects of Concrete in Micro-Gravity Conditions and will be launched on May 1st in NASA Wallops in Virginia on the Orb-2 Mission. Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for news and updates on our upcoming work links for Facebook and Twitter are at the end of this post. Thank you. For more information please contact us or Norah Patten @ norah.patten@ul.ie or the following:
spacecowboybuilders@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/SpaceBowboyBuilders?ref=hl
https://twitter.com/SpaceCowboysIRE