HOT STAGING MODULE FOR MULTISTAGE ROCKETS

Historically, the Akronauts Rocket Design Team builds and launches two-stage rockets that rely on black powder charges as a way of stage-separation. With a hot-staging module, the second stage is ignited while still connected to the first stage, and the thrust from the second stage induces separation. To prevent rotation of the sustainer during the booster stage, the sustainer motor and fins will be axially interlocked with the module in a similar manner to the Akronauts’ previous stage separation modules. This method would reduce the number of failure modes and reduce the number of components required for stage separation. This Hot Staging Module will be designed within the team, and a CFD simulation analysis will be performed to validate and optimize this module for flight

Factors Affecting Production Of Scopulariopsis Brevicaulis Spores For Use In Self-Healing Concrete

Concrete durability is compromised by its susceptibility to cracking, necessitating innovative solutions like self-healing concrete (SHC). Scopulariopsis brevicaulis is capable of biomineralization and its spores were found to hold high potential for use in SHC. Realizing this potential requires clean and effective production of S. brevicaulis spores, which remains unexplored. Here the factors and processes conducive to high productivity of S. brevicaulis spores were investigated. Suitability of cheap, renewable soy-based substrates: soy molasses (SM), soy hull (SH), and soy flour (SF) were first evaluated, and SH was found suitable. The comparison of SH-based solid-state fermentation (SSF) with submerged fermentation (SmF) revealed SSF’s superiority, producing spores earlier and with a more than 4.5-fold higher rate. Further study of SSF parameters, including initial spore inoculum, moisture, SH particle size, sugar supplementation, N-source supplementation, pH, salt addition, light (vs. dark) condition, and occasional mixing/shaking plus water addition, highlighted conditions that significantly boost spore production. Optimal moisture content (60–67%) and elevated medium pH (10–11) and salt addition (15 g/L NaCl) were key to enhancing yield, the latter likely induced stress-driven sporulation. Using larger SH particles (\u3e 850 µm) also proved beneficial, improving oxygen transfer. Electron microscopy confirmed the effective attachment and penetration of spore chains into SH particles. This work significantly improved the technical and economic feasibility of producing S. brevicaulis spores for industrial SHC development

Vector Estimation for Continuous Tracking of Observed Radio Signals (V.E.C.T.O.R.) Lunar Navigation System

NASA\u27s Artemis program requires precise navigation capabilities to establish the first sustained presence on the lunar surface. However, as launches bring necessary orbital infrastructure, the Artemis program will face a critical period during which reliable lunar navigation is not possible. To address this challenge, the V.E.C.T.O.R. system tracks assets, such as rovers and astronauts, as User Terminals relative to a pre-existing cell tower, or Base Station. To do so, the system leverages existing Base Station hardware to calculate the location of User Terminals in conjunction with existing communications infrastructure

Tropical Fish Study in Tahiti

During the spring and summer of 2023, I had the honor of partaking in a research study that focused on vertebrae found on the island of Moorea. This journey was made possible through the University-sponsored Tropical Vertebrae Biology course, taught by Richard Londraville and Peter Niewiarowski. Along with fellow University of Akron and Syracuse University students and staff, I traveled to this French Polynesian Island off the coast of Tahiti to study an amphibious fish inhabiting the intertidal zones of coral and rocky reefs, while also exploring the unique scenery and culture that Moorea has to offer. My research team, composed of my fellow University of Akron students and myself, took an interest in the forces applied by the blackspotted rockskipper to evade predators on the coastline. Our curiosity was specific to their ability the forces exerted as they jump. In order to better understand the blackspotted rockskippers’ ability to jump off rocks of different properties, we prepared a force plate of various substrates, specifically those of wet, dry, rough, and smooth surfaces. Our analysis demonstrated higher force, jump duration, and power on dry surfaces compared to wet surfaces, with little to no difference when comparing the substrate’s roughness. Upon returning and finishing our research paper, our article, Navigating Nature’s Terrain: Jumping Performance Robust to Substrate Moisture and Roughness by Blackspotted Rockskippers (Entomacrodus striatus), was successfully published in Wiley’s Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A: Ecological and Integrative Physiology where the rights of the paper are possessed. More about this project can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jez.2903?af=

Connecting Worlds: TravelMate’s Bidding System For Personalized Travel Experiences

TravelMate is a web platform that connects travelers with local guides through a personalized trip posting system along with real time bidding from freelancer guides. This platform utilizes Next.js for a responsive frontend, and Supabase for managing database and backend RESTful API, using PostgREST - a thin API layer on top of Postgres. This platform is ideal for anyone looking to explore new places with a freelancer guide and gain cultural insights from a local expert who understands the place deeply

Review of: \u3cem\u3eWomen Talking\u3c/em\u3e [film]—Sarah Polley

Women Talking (directed by Sarah Polley) is a film that was released in 2022 and is based on Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name. Both the film and the novel are, in turn, based on events that took place in the early 2000s in Manitoba Colony, Bolivia, where Old Colony Mennonite men raped and assaulted women and girls in their own community. This review contextualizes the movie by explaining Old Colony Mennonite beliefs, religious practices, and migrations, and then it summarizes the film and offers some thoughts about outsiders’ fascination with the film. [First paragraph.

Lost in Translation: The Absence of Untranslatable Words in the English Classroom

This qualitative study explores the impact of lexical gaps and untranslatable words on self-expression and communication in English-speaking classrooms. Seven interviews were conducted with bilingual or non-native English speakers representing a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds, including Arabic, Portuguese, Marathi, Hindi, Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Each interview investigated how language impacts self-expression, or the ability to communicate thoughts, emotions, and identity within the classroom. The findings suggest that untranslatable words and cultural concepts from participants’ native languages offer insights into cultural perspectives, which are often undervalued and not represented in English-speaking classrooms. Additionally, all participants desired greater language inclusivity in classrooms and emphasized the importance of accurately integrating native languages and cultural perspectives into instruction. These findings suggest that the language of home and day-to-day life is deeply intertwined. Based on these findings, the study proposes that honoring students’ linguistic identities can enhance classroom inclusivity, ownership, and communication. Ultimately, rather than viewing lexical gaps as deficits, they can be seen as lenses through which multicultural classrooms are formed. Through consistent, student-led discussions, students, like Shakespeare, can be literary scholars in their own right as they introduce these words and phrases into the classroom language

Pyriform silk attachment discs from riparian spiders stick to wet surfaces

Adhesion in wet conditions presents significant challenges due to the disruptive effects of water on interfacial bonding, spreading, and curing. Many organisms have evolved adhesives that adhere strongly in damp or submerged environments. However, the pyriform silk attachment discs of the western black widow spider lose ∼8x of their adhesive strength when wet. Here, we test the hypothesis that riparian species of spiders have evolved attachment discs that are resistant to water\u27s adverse effects on adhesion. We compare adhesion of attachment discs from three terrestrial, relatively dry habitats to three riparian spider species when discs are loaded under both dry and wet conditions. Failure modes shifted from dragline breakage in dry conditions to adhesive failure in wet conditions across all species, highlighting water\u27s impact on interfacial bonding. However, riparian species attachment discs maintained adhesive force when wet while terrestrial species experienced ∼50% reductions in peak force and work of adhesion in wet conditions. These findings suggest that riparian spider silks have evolved specializations that maintain adhesive performance of pyriform attachment disks in wet environments, offering insights into bioinspired design for water-resistant adhesives

Migration, Trauma, and \u3cem\u3eTweeback\u3c/em\u3e: Perspectives on Russian Mennonite Identity in Elina Penner’s Novel \u3cem\u3eNachtbeeren\u3c/em\u3e

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, a group of about 2.5 million Russia Germans immigrated to Germany, benefiting from the German law that recognizes citizenship to ethnic Germans who arrived in the territory as late ethnic Germans resettlers. Including their children, this subset of Germany’s population now numbers about 3.5 million, and about 350.000 Russia Germans have a Mennonite background. Of the 500.000 Plautdietsch-speaking people worldwide, about 200,000 of them live in Germany. In her debut novel, Nachtbeeren, the author Elina Penner illuminates the everyday life of German Mennonites from the Soviet Union and the successor states. This article explores the novel’s portrayal of elements that impact the hybrid cultural identity of Mennonites from the former Soviet Union in the context of their lived experience in Germany. It contextualizes Penner’s novel within the corpus of literature written by German authors with origins in the Soviet Union and discusses the key experience of migration and the historical dimension of relocation, displacement, and exodus in the Mennonite community. [Abstract by author.

FUN! FRIENDS! FAMOUS PEOPLE! Why Fans Attend Anime Conventions

In 2021 during the global Covid-19 lockdowns, Billy and Maria ran an IRB-exempted online survey, looking to hear from fans who attend anime conventions. Conventions had been shut down as non-essential services that drew large crowds, and we hoped to capture a screenshot of this moment, to better learn from it in the future. And the resulting data collection went quite well – we were able to partner with a major anime organization to share the survey, and our 1000+ respondents had a lot to say about the conventions they were missing during lockdowns. Ultimately, we found a significant emphasis on the need for physical community spaces, which were being recognized and remembered fondly in a moment when they had gone away. In this paper, we provide an overview of the work we did with the 2021 survey of anime convention attendees and consider four of the major themes that we’ve uncovered in our ongoing work with a rich, multi-layered dataset, which themselves suggest specific interests in accessible spaces of knowledge and expertise