Space Systems Engineering (16.83X) is the astronautical capstone course option in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.  Between Spring 2002 and Spring 2003, the course was offered in a 3-semester format, using a Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate (C-D-I-O) teaching model. 16.83X is shorthand for the three course numbers: 16.83, 16.831, and 16.832. The first semester (16.83) is the Conceive-Design phase of the project, which results in a detailed system design, but precedes assembly.  The second semester (16.831) is the Implement phase, and involves building the students’ system.  The final semester (16.832) is the Operate phase, in which the system is tested and readied to perform in its intended environment.
This year’s project objective was to demonstrate the feasibility of an electromagnetically controlled array of formation flying satellites.  The project, “EMFFORCE”, was an extension of the first C-D-I-O course project, “SPHERES”, which ran from Spring 1999 through Spring 2000, and demonstrated satellite formation flying using gas thrusters for station-keeping.  The whole class works on the same project, but divides into smaller subsystem teams, such as power, metrology, and structures, to handle design details.

From paving your patio to measuring the ingredients for your latest recipe, squares, roots and powers really are part of everyday life. This unit reviews the basics of all three and also describes scientific notation, which is a convenient way of writing or displaying large numbers.

This group activity illustrates the concepts of size and power of a test through simulation. Students simulate binomial data by repeatedly rolling a ten-sided die, and they use their simulated data to estimate the size of a binomial test.

This lesson will introduce solar power, how it works, and energy storage to students through hands on materials and activities. It will also foster an understanding of renewable energy and how we can use renewable energy to power our cities.

Students explore how the efficiency of a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel is affected by the ambient temperature. They learn how engineers predict the power output of a PV panel at different temperatures and examine some real-world engineering applications used to control the temperature of PV panels.

This graduate seminar introduces an emerging research program within International Relations on territorial conflict. While scholars have recognized that territory has been one of the most frequent issues over which states go to war, territorial conflicts have only recently become the subject of systematic study. This course will examine why territorial conflicts arise in the first place, why some of these conflicts escalate to high levels of violence and why other territorial disputes reach settlement, thereby reducing the likelihood of war. Readings in the course draw upon political geography and history as well as qualitative and quantitative approaches to political science.

Students learn about wind as a source of renewable energy and explore the advantages and disadvantages wind turbines and wind farms. They also learn about the effectiveness of wind turbines in varying weather conditions and how engineers work to create wind power that is cheaper, more reliable and safer for wildlife.

This course is taught in four main parts. The first is a review of fundamental thermodynamic concepts (e.g. energy exchange in propulsion and power processes), and is followed by the second law (e.g. reversibility and irreversibility, lost work). Next are applications of thermodynamics to engineering systems (e.g. propulsion and power cycles, thermo chemistry), and the course concludes with fundamentals of heat transfer (e.g. heat exchange in aerospace devices).

“Tragedy” is a name originally applied to a particular kind of dramatic art and subsequently to other literary forms; it has also been applied to particular events, often implying thereby a particular view of life. Throughout the history of Western literature it has sustained this double reference. Uniquely and insistently, the realm of the tragic encompasses both literature and life.
Through careful, critical reading of literary texts, this subject will examine three aspects of the tragic experience:    

the scapegoat
the tragic hero
the ethical crisis

These aspects of the tragic will be pursued in readings that range in the reference of their materials from the warfare of the ancient world to the experience of the modern extermination camps.

Students are introduced to the concepts of torque, power, friction and gear ratios. Teams modify two robotic LEGO® MINDSTORMS® vehicles by changing their gear ratios, wheel sizes, weight and engine power, while staying within a limit of points to spend on modifications. The robots face each other on a track with a string attaching one to the other. The winning robot, the one with the best adjustments, pulls the other across the line.

Much has been said about significance testing – most of it negative. Methodologists constantly point out that researchers misinterpret p-values. Some say that it is at best a meaningless exercise and at worst an impediment to scientific discoveries. Consequently, I believe it is extremely important that students and researchers correctly interpret statistical tests. This visualization is meant as an aid for students when they are learning about statistical hypothesis testing. The visualization is based on a one-sample Z-test. You can vary the sample size, power, significance level and the effect size using the sliders to see how the sampling distributions change.

This is a seminar about the ways that urban design contributes to the distribution of political power and resources in cities. “Design,” in this view, is not some value-neutral aesthetic applied to efforts at urban development but is, instead, an integral part of the motives driving that development. The class investigates the nature of the relations between built form and political purposes through close examination of a wide variety of situations where public and private sector design commissions and planning processes have been clearly motivated by political pressures, as well as situations where the political assumptions have remained more tacit. We will explore cases from both developed and developing countries.

Students learn the history of the waterwheel and common uses for water turbines today. They explore kinetic energy by creating their own experimental waterwheel from a two-liter plastic bottle. They investigate the transformations of energy involved in turning the blades of a hydro-turbine into work, and experiment with how weight affects the rotational rate of the waterwheel. Students also discuss and explore the characteristics of hydroelectric plants.

Students use watt meters to measure the power required and calculate energy used from various electrical devices and household appliances.

This video is the first in a series of videos related to the basics of power analyses. All materials shown in the video, as well as content from the other videos in the power analysis series can be found here: https://osf.io/a4xhr/

During this activity, students learn how oil is formed and where in the Earth we find it. Students take a core sample to look for oil in a model of the Earth. They analyze their sample and make an informed decision as to whether or not they should "drill for oil" in a specific location.

Students research the feasibility of installing a wind-turbine distributed energy (DE) system for their school. They write a proposal (actually, the executive summary of a proposal) to the school principal based on their findings and recommendations. While this activity is geared towards fifth-grade and older students, and Internet research capabilities are required, some portions of this activity may be appropriate for younger students.

Investigating a waterwheel illustrates to students the physical properties of energy. They learn that the concept of work, force acting over a distance, differs from power, which is defined as force acting over a distance over some period of time. Students create a model waterwheel and use it to calculate the amount of power produced and work done.

This semester, we will read writing about travel and place from Columbus’s Diario through the present. Travel writing has some special features that will shape both the content and the work for this subject: reflecting the point of view, narrative choices, and style of individuals, it also responds to the pressures of a real world only marginally under their control. Whether the traveler is a curious tourist, the leader of a national expedition, or a starving, half-naked survivor, the encounter with place shapes what travel writing can be. Accordingly, we will pay attention not only to narrative texts but to maps, objects, archives, and facts of various kinds.
Our materials are organized around three regions: North America, Africa and the Atlantic world, the Arctic and Antarctic. The historical scope of these readings will allow us to know something not only about the experiences and writing strategies of individual travelers, but about the progressive integration of these regions into global economic, political, and knowledge systems. Whether we are looking at the production of an Inuit film for global audiences, or the mapping of a route across the North American continent by water, these materials do more than simply record or narrate experiences and territories: they also participate in shaping the world and what it means to us.
Authors will include Olaudah Equiano, Caryl Philips, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Joseph Conrad, Jamaica Kincaid, William Least Heat Moon, Louise Erdrich, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.
Expeditions will include those of Lewis and Clark (North America), Henry Morton Stanley (Africa), Ernest Shackleton and Robert F. Scott (Antarctica).