I started Tuesday helping Matt and Nate make videos for the first-year class. We covered the Mill and how to use it practically. We covered how to maintain your workspace and properly machine using the mill. We also covered TIG welding and all the procedures to safely weld material together. TIG is one of the most challenging techniques in welding because you need mountains of experience in order to weld at a professional level. There are multitudes more that affect the integrity of a TIG weld than many other welding techniques. You don’t need a perfect environment to TIG weld, but you need a clean and still environment to keep impurities out and stop your shielding gas from blowing away. Even if you create a sufficient environment, you still need a steady hand and experience if you don’t want your weld to look like something out of an alien movie.
On Wednesday, I repaired the TIG welder by replacing the outer liner which houses all the hoses for coolant and gas. Additionally, I replaced the coolant hose with a new one to stop the coolant from leaking. We had to wait to put to finish up since the hose soaked itself with coolant and water. This was a precaution in case the water would rot the leather used to house all the hoses. After lunch, I was able to start TIG welding with little leadership from Nate, who gave me tips on why my welds were porous and cratered even though I properly prepared my surfaces.
On Thursday, Shae and I finished up our Estes Rockets and decided to fire them off with Matt and Nate. The engine of the rocket is a ceramic cylinder with black powder on the inside. To ignite it, two pieces of wire with a flammable substance on the end we’re stuck inside the ceramic cylinder. Additionally, we placed our DACs, which collect their position in altitude every millisecond, in the cone of our rocket and made sure it was collecting data. Then, we headed outside to the nearby field and set up the launch platform. We fired each rocket separately in order to keep track of where they landed and so people could film the launch. Afterward, Matt showed us how to calculate thrust and sort the data to show the path each rocket traveled. I was blown away by Matts’s teaching skills. Even though I haven’t covered physics yet, he explained the formulas and calculations so that I could follow along. It was amazing understanding the science behind thrust and learning about how predicting the path of a rocket worked.
On Friday, I worked on TIG welding and slowly understood the kinks and quirks of the process. From the ranging porosity to the meaning behind the welding beads’ color. I was able to figure out a sort of goldilocks zone, where I don’t have porosity and my arc length creates a sizable puddle underneath. With a sizable puddle, welding two different surfaces are much easier as more material is being melted and fused. Unfortunately, it’s hard to weld continuously since the strong UV light from the arc irritates the eyes, even with eye protection and auto-dim helmets. So, I spent the rest of the day helping Shae with the graphite nozzle inserts and finished covering the mill for the tutorial class.
For the Fourth of July, I stayed indoors and indulged in my favorite foods. I also played some of my favorite games to fully complete the experience.
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