Zero Gravity Glow Experiment!
The ZGGE flight program got started when
Mrs. Samudio here in West Lafayette
emailed me a question her students had
about if fireflies would light up in
space station and he emailed back to say
I'm not going to answer your question
we're going to prove it together with
his class at Purdue and our second grade
class here at Cumberland. I knew there
were new K through 12 opportunities for
space flight experiments. Looks like this
year we will indeed have our experiment
launched on a rocket from the Blue
Origin company. We're going for about a
third the cost of football uniforms. Any
school district in the country that
plays football can afford K through 12.
spaceflight now.
What was really interesting to me about this project
was honestly, the incorporation with the public
school system. And now I have the
opportunity to actually progress
something where kids that young can
actually work with space. Thank goodness
for Purdue and their willingness to outreach
and come into the school.
That's an experience that, you know, it's priceless.
We're not flying actual fireflies.
There'll be two firefly chemicals
that get mixed to create
the glow. Luciferin and luciferase, the
chemicals that do the glowing and the
other is the power source... ATP which
actually produces the glow.
The experiment will be a little smaller than
a standard Kleenex box. Right here we
have pretty much the brain of our entire
operation. So this is going to be
connected directly to the rocket's
computer it will be feeding the arduino
or computer information about our flight
and when we get into a proper altitude
the computer will activate the linear
actuator. This is a check valve here that
keeps the chemicals from mixing before
the right time after it gets the right
point our computer tells the actuator
here to push this syringe which will push
the liquids through the check valve
here where it will mix with the other chemicals
and that gives us our glow. Does gravity have an
effect on this chemical reaction?
Our hypothesis is that it's going to work
because everything is mixing well
everything is working fine here on earth.
60 years ago we were hoping to get
to the moon, now we're telling second
graders you can almost get there too.
I want the kids to dream and be inspired
by not only the students that come here
from Purdue but what they're achieving.
Everybody can appreciate this
project everybody loves space. Everybody's
dreamed looking up at the stars and
this is an actual feasible thing for the
second graders now. I don't think there's
any grade limit to creativity and curiosity.
We're Team ZGGE and we're testing to see
if fireflies will glow in space.
