The Ohio Journal of - The Ohio Academy of Science

Vol. 112(1)
Poster Board No. 068 THE RELATIONSHIP OF BASS VIOL
PRICE VERSUS PREFERENCE EXPRESSED BY A PANEL OF
MUSICIANS. Celeste E. Smith, cesmith4242@gmail.com.
(Deborah Bogard), Dempsey Middle School, 599 Pennsylvania
Ave. Delaware OH 43015
The quality of an instrument’s sound in a musical
performance can greatly enhance an audience’s pleasure.
A bass string vibrates creating a sound wave. The
frequency of the vibration of the string creates the pitch of
the note. The four strings used on standard basses Hz (or
frequencies) are 41Hz (E string), 55 Hz (A string) 72.4 Hz
(D string) and 98 Hz (G string); these were tested in this
study. The purpose of this research was to learn if buying
a more expensive instrument resulted in a sound preferred
by musicians. It was hypothesized that if a bass was more
expensive, then musicians would report that they enjoyed
the sound more. A group of six basses were tested. These
were either built or rebuilt in 2000-2010. Three of these
were less expensive ($1,200-$2,000) and the other three
more expensive, ($5,000-$12,000). All basses were played
into recording software, called a spectrogram, which
graphed the frequency of the instruments. Musicians
took a blind online survey of which sounds they preferred.
Thirty-nine musicians responded, and the most preferred
sound was of Bass C with twelve votes. Bass C cost $3,125
and was built in 2004. Five voted for Bass A (cost $2,550),
one voted for Bass B (cost $10,500), three voted for Bass
D (cost $3,125), four voted for Bass E (cost $12,450), six
voted for Bass F (cost $8,400), and seven voted for “cannot
tell the difference.” There was not a correlation between
the spectrogram and the survey, because the value the
spectrogram showed was the same for all frequencies.
The conclusion of this study is that the quality of sound
produced by the basses tested was not dependent on price.
Further research would greatly enhance the validity of
this study.
Poster Board No. 069 RADIATION EMBRITTLEMENT OF MISSE
5 POLYMERS AFTER 13 MONTHS OF SPACE EXPOSURE Grace T.
Yi 1 , gyi13@hb.edu, Gianna G. Mitchell, gmitchell13@hb.edu,
Claire E. Ashmead, cashmead12@hb.edu, 5375 Portchester
Drive, Hudson OH, 44236. (Hathaway Brown School)
As the prevalence of satellites serving communication
and navigation purposes increases, understanding the
degradation patterns of space materials is becoming ever
more important for designing durable space components.
As a result of space radiation exposure, atomic oxygen
interaction, and thermal cycling, the outer surfaces of
space materials degrade when exposed to low Earth
orbit (LEO). The objective of this study was to measure
radiation-embrittlement-altered material properties of
polymers used in spacecraft applications.
As part of the Materials International Space Station
Experiment 5 (MISSE 5), 39 polymers of varying materials
were flown aboard the International Space Station for 13
months. The samples were flown in a nadir-facing position
and received relatively low doses of radiation. To determine
the altered mechanical properties of the samples, each
sample underwent bend testing, which utilized successively
smaller mandrels to apply surface strain to samples placed
on a semi-suspended pliable platform. The procedure
included optical microscopy plus a coordinate system to
ensure precision and regularity in documentation. For each
flight sample, a pristine control sample was also tested.
Of the 39 flight samples, 31 experienced some degree of
surface cracking from the bend test, even though they were
exposed to relatively low doses of radiation. None of the
39 pristine counterparts experienced any surface cracking.
These results indicated that even low doses of radiation
have embrittling effects on polymers. In conclusion, even
minimal exposure to radiation cannot be ignored when
designing materials for space use, forcing engineers to
reevaluate materials previously thought to be appropriate
for space use and travel.
The Ohio Journal of Science A-49
Poster Board No. 070 SYNTHASIS AND EVALUATION OF HIGHLY
ELASTOMERIC POLY(DIMETHYLSILOXANE) AEROGELS. Devon
M Kilroy, dkilroy13@aol.com, 8810 Fairmount Road, Novelty,
OH 44072. (Hathaway Brown School)
The freeze-drying of an aqueous clay gel results in a lowdensity
material known as a clay aerogel. Aerogels are
primarily air containing inorganic skeletal structures
and when aerogels are prepared using only laponite clay,
which is a synthetically layered silicate, they tend to
have less desirable mechanical properties, such as very
weak compression moduli, in comparison to most other
materials. The addition of polymers to a clay aerogel
matrix has the potential to greatly improve the various
mechanical properties of the material. Polymer/clay aerogel
composites have a wide range of potential applications
in packaging, insulation, and as light-weight structural
materials. Poly(dimethylsiloxane)/clay aerogel composites
were formed by adding room temperature vulcanized
poly(dimethylsiloxane), Karstedt’s catalyst, which is an
organometallic platinum complex and a crosslinking agent,
and a surface binding agent to an aqueous laponite clay gel.
The clay/water gel was blended until exfoliation occurred.
Then dimethylsiloxane and Karstedt’s were added to
the solution. The resulting gel was placed in a rotating
lyophilization shell freezer (Virtis Freeze Mobile S2EL,
-85°C–-70°C temperature range and with a pressure
reduced to approximately 5 microbar) to sublime the water
and create the finished poly(dimethylsiloxane)/clay aerogel.
This aerogel was formed into a porous, elastic silicone
network and it had an average density of 0.652 g/cm 3 ;
higher than most other polymer/clay aerogel composites.
As demonstrated by compression testing, the resulting
material lacked strength and stiffness, but demonstrated
toughness with a 100% recovery and a modulus of 0.043
MPa in comparison to pure poly(dimethylsiloxane) that
recovered 95.1% with fractures in the composition and a
modulus of 0.341 MPa. The most noteworthy observation
was that the poly(dimethylsiloxane)/clay aerogel acts
elastically, recovering completely from high compressive
strain without permanent deformation, even after multiple
loading and unloading cycles.
Poster Board No. 071 DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF AN
AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC RECYCLABLES TRANSPORTER
(ARRT). Samantha B. Santoscoy, sb.santoscoy@gmail.com,
Ketki Lele, klele12@hb.edu, 7870 Fox Hill Dr East, Gates Mills
OH 44040 (Hathaway Brown School)
Recycling is an important aspect of modern society as
resources become increasingly limited. The goal of this
project was to design, build, wire, and program a robot to
autonomously navigate a building and pick up designated
recycling bins, thus implementing a more efficient method
of recycling. It is hypothesized that this robot would
successfully self-navigate the building, pick up recycling
bins, and dump each bin’s contents into its trailer 100%
of the time. After a series of designs, the main structure
of this Autonomous Robotic Recyclables Transporter
(ARRT) was built using aluminum bars. Aspects of ARRT
include a dual mechanical arm, pneumatics to operate
the arm and clamp onto recycling bins, and Omni wheels
for greater maneuverability in high obstacle zones. To
program ARRT, the student researchers wrote several
programs in Java. A series of waypoints were used to map
out the robot’s route and a PID controller was used to
keep the robot from straying away from the determined
path. Sensors such as encoders attached to the motors
and a gyroscope were used to obtain information about
the robot’s position and heading, integral components of a
successful PID controller. Each physical portion of ARRT
and program written for ARRT functioned correctly 100%
of the time in 10 trials. The entire robot can complete its
designated route, thus marking the success of this project.
ARRT can be easily applied to any building because of its
ability to adapt to new paths and be used for transporting
other materials, such as medical or janitorial supplies, as
long as they are within the allotted width (2 feet). ARRT is