NASA TechRise Student Challenge

January 2022 - July 2022

This project was constructed in my Pre-Engineering class as a result of our acceptance into the 2021-2022 NASA TechRise Student Challenge.

Atmospheric Measurement Of Noxious Gases Using Sensors (A.M.O.N.G.U.S.) is an experiment that attempts to detect greenhouse gases and air particle levels. We are developing an instrumentation package that includes sensors for measuring air particle concentration, CO2 concentration, temperature, humidity, and pressure. A fan is utilized to expose our sensors to direct air flow and ensure that new air samples enter the center chamber. Throughout the flight, our cameras will be recording videos and taking photos. The sensors are powered by the Arduino Mega, and the telemetry data is collected by the Metro M4 microcontroller. All data collected will be retained on our SD card modules from our 4 hour flight on the high altitude balloon from South Dekota.

Materials

Sensor Team

With a class of 22 students the easiest way to collaborate in this project was to break out into subteams/subsystems. I took part in the sensor subteam where I mainly dealt with the PMSA003I Air Quality sensor and the DPS310 (Pressure/Altitude Sensor). As part of the sensor subteam our job was to validate that the sensors were doing what they were supposed to do and giving us results we would expect to see.

In order to see the functionality of our sensors we ran a test by lighting a paper to create smoke. We saw the particulates increase from around 5μg/m³ to more than 2000μg/m³ which gave us sufficient evidence to conclude that this sensor is somewhat reliable.

There was something that me and my team noticed with the values we were returned. The library supplied to us for the sensor didn't contain units for Air quality index (AQI). I was able to write code converting μg/m³ to AQI in order to translate into words what these values mean in reality.

Conversion Information

After we converted the PM 2.5 value to AQI we were able to compare the value to a weather app and we saw that the values were pretty close to each other and both picked up the Air Quality to be "Moderate".

Testing

We visited Anderson Research Lab at Harvard University to use their environmental chamber to see the effect on the sensors in lower pressure as our experiment would be at 70,000 feet in the atmosphere. I was in charge of making the test plan using sample telemetry data of the flight.

Environmental Chamber Pictures

Test Cycles

This graph shows the true trend between pressure and altitude against time

After learning that we could not drop pressure linearly I made a new graph where we would drop pressure in 5 minute intervals.

Ultimately, we decided that we should have the test plan hit specific points twice so we can see if any particular pressure has any effect on the sensors.

Results

We were provided a 4x4x8 inch 3D printed flight box for the general framework of our project. The electrical components of our experiment are attached to the balsa wood structure of our box using both plastic and metal machine screws. The outside walls are screwed directly to the plastic frame, while the interior walls are kept in place by tabs that attach to the top and bottom of our wooden structure. The center chamber, which houses all of the sensors and the Adafruit Metro M4, was designed to keep direct airflow from entering the surrounding chambers, which hold the rest of our electronics. We ensured the security of all of our connections by utilizing either STEMMA QT connectors or epoxy to bind our Dupont connectors to the Adafruit Metro M4 and Arduino Mega.

Reflection

After 7 months of hard work we finally completed our project. Overall, this project was a solid representation of what an actual engineering project is like. This project opened my eyes to how many technical problems there could be in projects like this and it’s just the start to my engineering endeavors. It also showed me that engineers don't work alone to create a project; they are often broken up into different groups working on different parts of the project but at the end everything comes together like with our project here. I would like to thank Future Engineers for this amazing opportunity and can’t wait to get our data back after our flight in Spring 2023 to aid with climate change research.