12:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Interested in building something? Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects.

This month’s Saturday build session we’ll continue with our Sky Satellite project by designing and building PongSats.

Previously we built a balloon launched camera which we flew at a nearby park to a height of 250 feet. Next well start to design and build a micro sky satellite called a PongSat. What is a PongSat? It’s an ping pong ball sized experiment flown to the edge of space by balloons and/or launched in rockets. The launch and recovery opportunity is provided by JP Aerospace.

There are endless possibilities for experiments that can fit inside a ping pong ball. PongSat’s can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. Experiments can be as simple as comparing how high a ball bounces before and after being exposed to vacuum. The PongSat can carry seeds to see if exposure to cosmic rays effect their growth. Several small inexpensive computers and other electronic can fit inside a PongSat. These can be used to create a wide range of experiments. Whether carrying a marshmallow to see if it puffs up in the vacuum of near space or an entire sophisticated satellite in miniature, PongSat can create motivation, drive and passion. – JP Aerospace

Members and the public are welcome to join the project team. RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

Note: We recommend that parents participate with their children; children under 10 must have a parent present for the entire workshop.

6:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects. We’re rebuilding our Mars Exploration Rover during this build session.

Members and the public are welcome to participate. Please RSVP to events@sdspace.org if you’d like to participate.

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Sponsored by NASA, EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) is an educational outreach program allowing middle school students to take pictures of our Earth from a digital camera on board the International Space Station.

SD Space will work with local middle schools and offer after-school activities supporting the mission. If you would like your middle-school child to participate, please RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

SD Space members and the public are welcome to help out. Please let us know if you’d like to volunteer by emailing us at events@sdspace.org.

12:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Interested in building something? Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects.

This month’s Saturday build session includes a DIY Sky Satellite.

We will be starting phase one of the project we selected in December. We took a page from Make magazine’s “DIY Space” issue and determined we would build our own homebuilt satellite that take payloads first to a tethered height, then phase two will launch into near-space and hopefully phase three high into sub-orbit.

Members and the public are welcome to join the project team, but please sign up by Jan. 14th. RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

Note: We recommend that parents participate with their children; children under 10 must have a parent present for the entire workshop.

On Saturday, October 16th, Derek Nye and several SD Space members led a telescope building workshop at the Space Activities Lab in South Park. Five students attended the free hands-on activity, the second in a series offered by SD Space.

Before starting the build project, the students learned about telescopes from Phil Blanco, a local astronomy professor and Project ASTRO leader. They talked about how telescopes work, Galileo’s discoveries with them 400 years ago, and the kinds of things one could see with the Galileoscope (which has far better optics than Galileo’s telescope!).

After completing their new telescopes, everyone had fun trying them out in the lab, and then looking up and down the street. With a telescope mount – such as a camera tripod, some of the night time objects that can be observed in the next couple of weeks include: craters on our Moon, Jupiter and its moons, and even a special appearance by comet Hartley 2. We’ll be getting together at the Emporium soon to do just that when we have a clear night.

Contact projects@sdspace.org if you’d like to participate, or if you’re interested in attending future workshops.

On Saturday, September 18th, Derek Nye led a model rocketry workshop at the Space Activities Lab in South Park. Seven San Diego students attended the free hands-on event, the first in a series offered by SD Space.

While building their rocket kits, the students learned about aerodynamics, construction techniques, and the fundamentals of rocketry itself. Many of the kids were introduced to rocketry for the very first time. By the time we were done, they had a fully built rocket ready to fly that they built themselves, proving their own capabilities in working hands on with tools, and their ability to take on an interesting project.

Derek and the kids hope to launch their rockets at an upcoming Dart Rocketry event. Contact projects@sdspace.org if you’d like to participate, or if you’re interested in attending future workshops.

Over the summer, SD Space fielded a team for the Moonbots challenge. After the main competition was done, we continued with a mini-challenge of our own for younger kids. The program was recently featured in an article on the Calit2 website:

About 15 children ranging in age from 6 to 11 participated in the program, which was sponsored by ViaSat (a producer of satellite and other digital communications) and led by Calit2’s MyLab Director Saura Naderi. Naderi collaborated with the San Diego Space Society to recruit children for the challenge, which taught them the basics of robot design, from gear mechanics to programming.

You can view all the progress reports (including weekly video blogs) on the team’s Moonbots Mini-Challenge site.

Thanks again to Saura Naderi, Derek Nye, Moonbots, Calit2, and ViaSat for all they did to make this program work. We look forward to participating again next year.

12:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

UPDATE: Registration for the rocket workshop is full. Please email events@sdspace.org if you would like to be added to the waiting list.

Interested in building something? Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects.

This month’s Saturday build session includes a special model rocket workshop.

Rockets have been used since the 1930s to explore the upper atmosphere and eventually space beyond. While our rocket kits won’t go that high, they will teach us about rockets, why they fly fast and furious, and how they can be used to carry satellites, robotic explorers and humans into orbit and beyond. Join us and build one of your own flying rockets.

Members and the public are welcome to attend, but please register in advance to receive one of 10 free model rocket kits. RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

Note: All ages welcome. If under 10 years old, parents are encouraged to also attend.

Space is a big place, and even with their giant telescopes, astronomers just can’t cover it all. This is where you come in. Yes, YOU!

Astronomy is one of the few scientific fields where amateur scientists can, and frequently do, make significant contributions. But now space scientists are increasingly also looking to people with little or no training for help with their research. Sometimes they are looking for free labor for tasks that humans can still do better than computers, like identifying different types of galaxies. Other times it’s numbers of eyes on the sky or feet on the ground they’re after. But more and more, they are finding ways to get regular citizens involved.

Here are some astronomy projects you can take part in right now:
Hunt for Meteorites
Mars Student Imaging Project
HiWish
Be a Martian
Stardust@Home
Galaxy Zoo and Moon Zoo

Read More wired.com

6:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects. We’ve got rockets, rovers and plenty of other projects to build.

Members and the public are welcome to attend. Please RSVP to events@sdspace.org if you’d like to participate.

If you cannot join us during the week, look for the once-a-month Saturday Project Build Day coming soon.