Science report SOL 2

Experiment : Seismometer
Person filling in the report : Mouadh Bouayad

I alone have been to the Science Dome today, at 4 :30 pm. It was real quick, as the commander, Arthur, asked me to be back at 5 :00pm. I brought a box with me, in order to put the instruments in it, and see if we can move it, already settled, during an EVA. I figured out that the battery is too heavy to put it in the box. I think we will move it independently from the other instruments, and we will plug the wires to it afterwards, in situ. The other instruments fit well in the box.

In order to protect the battery, particularly from the rain, I plan to use an emergency blanket to wrap the battery. I’ll leave a hole for the power wire to go through. We also would like to put a sign on the measurements site, in order to warn tourists not to touch the instruments. This would very unlikely happen, but let us be wary.

Experiment : Optinvent connected glasses
Person filling in the report : Louis Maller

I have been working with Mouadh on the Optinvent connected glasses. We are working on connecting the glasses to the computer screen using the dedicated application (Vysor), with mitigated success. We also installed the Tasker app and took some pictures with the integrated camera. We are also trying to find a technical solution in order to have visibility outdoors (looking into a strong light the screen is barely visible).
We are hoping to solve all these basic issues by tomorrow in order to be able to start the more complex and interesting tasks.

Experiment : Balloon
Person filling in the report : Simon Bouria

Concrete work on the solar balloon started today. With another member of the crew this morning, I built the platform of the balloon (made of cardboard boxes). The balloon can handle a two kilograms weight and has to support one or two GoPro cameras and the Arduino system. During the afternoon, I made the Java code of the Arduino to get the temperature, the pressure and the time. A few tests proved that the system is now functional. The solar balloon can now be taken for an EVA. We still have to take pictures and videos of the balloon, build a radio relay and prepare how and when we will use the balloon according to the weather. We still don’t know how high the balloon will go and how we are going to tether it. A complete protocol remains to be done to have a really efficient EVA. We also wondered if the second balloon will be built during an EVA or in the science dome.