E-Logbook

MIT Haughton Mars Expedition 2005

 

 

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July 14, 2005

 

Another eventful day at camp. Oz, A.C. Hitch, John, and Fez all worked really hard in the cold, damp weather to finish the base and erect the scaffolding for the MIT tent. In the afternoon, Oli helped them pull the canvas over the top, and Matt and Oli helped buckle the canvas down. The tent is very sturdy and it is impressive that it was erected so quickly in the weather.

 

Figure 1: Pulling the Canvas over the MIT tent. From left to right: Fez, John Schutt, Oz (in tent), Jack, and Oli

 

While the ten was going up, Erica and Matt worked out a system to tag the food on site for the mess tent RFID experiment. RFID tags are a bit fickle, and do not read well when applied to metal, or liquid. Metal reflects the RF waves and can short out the antenna, and liquid, whether behind glass or plastic, attenuates the signal and can short out the antenna as well. A simple way around this is to place a separator between the tag and the material. For now, rolled up paper towel and cardboard are being used. But, of course, specialized containers or redesigned tags would be best. After working out a tagging system, Erica and Matt began tagging dried food and drink mixes in the coolers behind the mess tent.

 

Figure 2: Erica and Matt having successfully tagged dried fruit in the core module.

 

Meanwhile, Mike made a lot of progress with the relational database, and wrote some code for the interface with RFID readers. Amidst helping erect the MIT tent, Oli spent much of the day taking a detailed inventory the Mess tent. Hundreds of items were entered into the excel database, and improvements were made to its layout and basic organization in the process.

 

Before lunch, we took a walk to the top of Comm Hill near camp, and were able to take some beautiful pictures towards the crater and back down to camp. See below:

Figure 3: From Comm Hill towards the crater. On the left is the big rock near the airport. The building on the right is the Mars Society hab, on the Rim of Haughton crater.

Figure 4: Tent City from Com hill. The MIT tents can be seen in yellow and blue.