Award Data

Empires is a web-based game that addresses 36 pre-algebra Common Core State Standards in mathematics for 7th and 8th grades. The game follows a storyline in a recreation of an ancient empire which is at the brink of agricultural revolution and of becoming a trade economy. As students play the game, they engage in math-focused activities to drive the action, such as taxing citizens to learn ratios ...

Transportable energy storage systems are emerging products for grid-tied applications. High voltage pulse power systems are planned for assembly in standard shipping containers to allow for easy transportability. Unfortunately, the current capabilities of these systems are considered inadequate due to the excessive size of the required power souce. Compact, high voltage capacitors are necessary ...

It is extremely important to understand the temporal characteristics of electron beams at accelerator photoinjectors. Measuring and setting the electron bunchlength is critical to the operation of the accelerator, and can ultimately determine if physics experiments at user-based accelerators can be successfully performed. Many parameters affect the temporal characteristics of electron bunches at ...

Sensing of greenhouse gases including, but not limited, to carbon dioxide and methane, throughout the atmosphere are needed to verify gas fluxes and concentrations in order to understand the terrestrial carbon cycle. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can provide the speed, range, and steering needed for rapid, measurements; but, UAVs have limited payload capacity. New gas sensors are needed that c ...

Ambient methane makes a substantial contribution to the greenhouse gas effect. Rapid, widespread accurate measurements of ambient methane concentration are needed to include in environmental models. D.O.E. is particularly interested in methane measurements in the Arctic where rapid climatic change is occurring. Southwest Sciences proposes to develop a compact, lightweight diode laser sensor for m ...

Knowing atmospheric 13CO2/12CO2 ratios precisely is important to understanding biogenic and anthroprogenic sources and sinks for carbon. However, instruments currently available have attributes that are not favorable for distributed UAV deployment; they are large, require a lot of power, are very expensive, do not have fast response and/or do not sufficiently correct for temperature and pressur ...

Monitoring the root systems of plants is essential to improving models of crop productivity, soil carbon sequestration and biogeochemical cycling. Fine roots (considered to be smaller than 1-2 mm in diameter) are the dominant component of this system, with roots & lt;0.2 mm in diameter often representing 50% to 95% of total root length. The plasticity and dynamism of fine root development must be ...

Aerosol research remains a priority area and requires strong efforts to resolve the very complex processes that occur in the atmosphere. To understand aerosol formation and their implications on climate the study of precursors provides very valuable information. Ammonia is one of the most important precursor molecules and plays a major role in the chemistry of the atmosphere. High-performance se ...

Development of the ballistic missile targets is a complex undertaking, particularly since radio-frequency (RF) blackout caused by plasma formation during re-entry complicates antenna designs for Global Positioning System (GPS) and telemetry signals. To minimize the cost of the design/build/test process, proposed designs should be first simulated and refined in a virtual prototyping environment bef ...

The objective of this proposal is to describe the design and technique behind a novel framing 2-dimensional (2-D) hyperspectral imager system that overcomes the limitations of traditional hyperspectral systems when tracking high speed targets and is capable of placing a 2-dimensional spatial grid on the target with enough pixels for shape-based target detection, while simultaneously and instantane ...