jlc@atux01.UUCP (J. Collymore) (06/01/88)
I am cross-posting this netnews article from comp.sys.mac. I think that some of
you in these newsgroups may also be interested in this.
Jim Collymore
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Students Give Museum Visitors A Chance To Launch Rockets
Washington, DC. May 3, 1988. Millions of visitors to the Smithsonian's National
Air and Space Museum soon will be able to test their own abilities to design
and launch rockets into space. They'll do it with the help of a computer
program created by three college students.
The program is the winning entry in the "Race for Space Software Chase," a
nationwide software writing contest sponsored by the Smithsonian and
Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.
Undergraduate and graduate students at leading universities across the country
were challenged to write computer programs that would let museum visitors
actually experience some of the ways computers are used in aviation and space
flight. The best entry was promised a place in a new air and space museum
gallery that will showcase the vital role that computers play in aerospace
technology. The gallery, called "Beyond the Limits" will open in May 1989.
Three students from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.,
captured the grand prize with a program on rocket design. The winning software
was designed by Pierce T. Wetter III, a junior electrical engineering major
from Simi Valley, Calif.; Mike Meckler, a sophomore physics major from
Columbus, Ohio; and Glenn C. Smith, a junior physics major from South Pasadena,
Calif.
The software will allow museum visitors to see how changing variables such as
thrust, weight and fuel type affect a rocket's ability to overcome gravity and
leave the earth's atmosphere. Once a visitor arrives at a workable design,
the program "launches" the rocket, calculates the maximum altitude it will
reach and compares these results with attempts by other visitors.
"The museum as a teaching institution hopes to stimulate thought -- on both a
scientific and a popular level -- about the challenges and excitement of
aerospace technology," said Martin O. Harwit, director of the National Air and
Space Museum. "We are happyto exhibit the work of the grand prize winning
students in our new computer gallery and to expand our role of educating the
public."
"Creating highly interactive, graphically sophisticated software is no small
accomplishment--one that would have been unheard of for students just a few
years ago. Today's computing tools give students both the means and the
motivation to solve real-world problems," Dave Barram, Apple's vice president
of corporate affairs, said today in announcing the winners at a news conference
at the museum.
The grand prize includes a summer internship at the museum for one member of
the Cal Tech team and 10 Macintosh II computers, donated by Apple to the
university.
In addition to Cal Tech, four other schools earned honors in the contest: the
University of California at Davis for a program that simulates effects of a
wind tunnel;Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois for software that
demonstrates how air crews use computers during reconnaissance flights.
Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. and the University of Notre Dame in
South Bend, Indiana, which each submitted programs that simulate the results of
aircraft design decisions. Each university was awarded two Macintosh II
computers.
All entries were required to be two-minute, interactive demonstrations that
show how computers are used in aerospace engineering. The entries were judged
in four categories; content, creativity, ease of use, and use of computer
science methodology.
The competition was judged by distinguished names in the aerospace and computer
industries: Burt Rutan, designer of the aircraft Voyager, which in 1986 flew
around the world non-stop without refueling; Paul MacCready, creator of the
Gossamer Condor and other human- and solar-powered aircraft; Alan Kay,
scientist and Apple Fellow whose ideas and innovation in programming languages
were critical to the development of personal computers, including Apple's
Macintosh; Robert E. Holzman, manager of computer graphics lab at Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which is well-known for its computer
animation of the flights of Voyager II and other unmanned flights into deep
space; and Paul Ceruzzi, associate curator in the Space Science and Exploration
Department.
About nine million people visit the museum each year to view 23 exhibition
galleries displaying some of the most significant aircraft and spacecraft ever
assembled in one place. The museum's new gallery will demonstrate the role
computers play in aerospace technology--including design, testing,
manufacturing and production, simulation and training, navigation and ground
control, on-board control and air and space operations.
Apple, the Apple logo and Macintosh are regisitered trademarks of Apple
Computer, Inc.
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__________________________________________________________________________
Ken Eddings CSNET: eddings@andy.bgsu.edu
Department of Philosophy ARPANET: eddings%andy.bgsu.edu@csnet-relay
Bowling Green State Univ. ALink: UG0182 attn: Ken Eddings
Bowling Green OH 43403 GEnie: K.EDDINGS
__________________________________________________________________________
"The prudent mariner never relies solely on any single aid
to navigation." -=Old Mariner's Proverb=-
__________________________________________________________________________bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) (06/13/88)
In article <684@atux01.UUCP> jlc@atux01.UUCP (J. Collymore) writes: >I am cross-posting this netnews article from comp.sys.mac. >----------------------------------------------------------- >Students Give Museum Visitors A Chance To Launch Rockets [...] >The software will allow museum visitors to see how changing variables such as >thrust, weight and fuel type affect a rocket's ability to overcome gravity and >leave the earth's atmosphere. Once a visitor arrives at a workable design, >the program "launches" the rocket, calculates the maximum altitude it will >reach and compares these results with attempts by other visitors. Exactly this type of system has been running in the Spaceflight gallery in the Science Museum in London for the last two and a half years. You are asked to select number of stages; thrust and fuel type for each stage; and the payload weight. The computer then launches the rocket, and draws the trajectory it would follow. For ease of calculation the Earth is assumed to be flat, but some designs still make it into orbit. :-> Bob.