The original idea was to make a rover that could repair and change itself by 3D printing new parts from local soil/regolith. This has 5 main parts: intaking the material, distributing it in thin and flat layers on the print bed, catching sunlight and turning it into a laser, directing that laser to print parts, and moving those parts to attach them to the rover. This last seemed especially hard, so we revised this plan to be a machine similar to a 3D printer usable by humans in an extraterrestrial colony. Others have created devices to sinter sand with sunlight, but unlike a 3D printer, they needed to constantly add and smooth the sand, making it a very involved process. We decided to focus on automating this, especially the distribution into accurately thin, smooth layers. After considering many possible designs, including printing outer walls to support the inner sand and moving the print bed up and down inside a set of walls, we decided on a rotating hopper lifted by a threaded rod. 

Thusday:

Today we made the body of the rover, cut the legs, and printed the wheels. We are very close to finising.

You will be creating your presentation on the NuVu Platform.

Things to do/think about:

• Your presentation should be located in the Portfolio tab of your project.
• There should be (1) post titled Process with all of the slides.
• If needed, you can have (1) post of a video of your project in action.
• All slides should have a title. You can add titles when editing the post
• With the exception of the Title slide NO TEXT SHOULD APPEAR ON YOUR SLIDES.
• Only (1) image per slide. NO GOOGLE DOCS!!!
• Be sure to add your team members as collaborators and make the (2) posts Public.
• Only one team member can edit a post at a time!
• Presentations should be no longer than 3 minutes. PRACTICE!

1st Post : Process

Absolutely no more than 8 Slides!

1 Intention Slide. For build projects, describe the Problem and Solution. For conceptual projects this can be expressed as Intention/Solution. The slide should include the name of the project and a one sentence statement of both the problem and the solution.

1 Brainstorming Slide. This should be a clean sketch of your initial ideas. If you do not have a nice drawing or lost yours, create one now!

2 Iteration Slides. These slides should show early prototypes of your design. Focus on big changes. You do not need to show tiny Changes.

3 Final Slides. These should show clean images of your final project.

Text:

In the text section for the process post, write a paragraph introducing the design problem or the main idea and how you are tackling it. Then, describe the main story or theme, mechanics, development, challenges, and other parts of the creative process you experienced. Each iteration should have a paragraph describing how you how you modified the project after receiving feedback.

1. Design Problem and Solution:

You should begin with a clear statement of the problem and the solution as both a one sentence description and a short paragraph expanding on the solution.

Here is an example from the Reaction Shelter project:

• The Problem: Over 300 natural disasters occur globally every year, displacing 32.5 million people on average.Domestically, 99 federal disaster declarations were on file with FEMA in 2011.
• The Solution: The Reaction Housing System is a rapid response, short-term housing solution.
• Detailed Solution: The core sustem components flat pack to provide extremeley efficient storage and transportation. The systems can be deployed within hours of an event without the need for tools or heavy machinery.

2. Further Ellaboration:

• Main Story or Theme: describe in further detail the reason for your project and the overall way you are solving that problem
• Mechanics: Describe how your project works and what it is doing
• Development: Briefly explain the progression of your project
• Challenges: Describe technical and design challenges you faced or are still facing. 

3. Iterations

Each iteration should have a paragraph describing how you how you modified the project after receiving feedback.

Here is an example from the Backcountry IV Project:

• In our second iteration, we redesigned the cylinder so that it actually had two compartments that would screw together. Though there were two compartments, there would be a small piece in between the two that would screw them together, so that they remained the same diameter and size. We designed the piece to fit exactly between the two compartments so that it wouldn’t be visible when the entire piece was together. The part had triangular shaped spaces cutting through it where the IV tube and wires for the technology side of our studio fit. In the upper cylinder, the holes remained for the UV lights, but there was more space underneath for the Arduino. In the bottom compartment, we created a hole in the middle designed to fit the IV reservoir and tubing, and small spaces directly next to the reservoir where the resistors to warm the reservoir sat. This spacing for the pieces worked well, except that the entire reservoir piece took up too much room, so much that all of the compartments didn’t screw together. Underneath the inner part designed to hold the reservoir and resistors, there was room underneath to hold the arm cuff and the excess tubing. We also designed two caps to close together the whole piece. Except for the fact that it was a bit sharp and there some minor fitting issues, the caps worked well and made the entire piece compact and portable. For the next iteration, which was the final one, we made a few critical changes.

2nd Post: Video

Upoload a short video showing your project in action. Do not count on your project working as you expect during the presentation.

my rocket succeded in keeping my egg safe. my idea for my egg drop was to use multi stage absorbtion. multi stage absorbtion is also used in car airbags. the basic principle is to spead out the fource across a long period of time so there is not a huge spike of force that could break an egg in my rocket or snap a neck in a car crash. my rocket has a cardboard triangular pyrimid on top that is filled with cotton. this was meant to break and absorb most of the impact. most of the remaining impact went to the 3 wooden rods wich carried the force past the egg. Additionally the egg was stored in a case filled with cotton.

Are you ready to join the Mars Rover scientists and programmers to design the next mission? This Summer, we’ll be lifting off and planning a journey to outer space to mine rare minerals from a local asteroid! You’ll learn about all the systems and components for designing this mission from ground up with focused attention on the design of the actual rover. Working in a highly diverse team, students will be tasked with designing the control systems for the mission, while others will be charged with designing and programming the rover robot that will be exploring the surface of the asteroid, and others will be overseeing the subsystems and instruments of the rover that will collect precious minerals. Let’s get ready to blast off!

In this Studio, students will analyze and design a comprehensive asteroid mining mission including the design, engineering and programming of a robotic rover while learning about the process of retrieving extraterrestrial resources. Each student will each assume the role of a system engineer, focused on the R&D, design, engineering and programming of a subsystem of the mission including launch, entry, descent, landing, deployment, lander structure, rover design, systems controls, rover intelligence, surface operations, instrument design, mining, and energy collection. Together, students will experience the iterative and exploratory process of engineering a complex system. We will start with basic lessons on chemistry, rocketry, and orbital mechanics, then focus our energy on the rover design including basics of robotics (sensors, actuators, microcontrollers), physics, and programming. We will end with a mission that is out of this world!

Register here!

Focus Skills/Subjects/Technologies:

  Design

  Physics (Electricity, Magnetism)

  Engineering

  Programming

  Electronics

  Robotics (Arduino)

  Sensors & Actuators

  Digital Fabrication (Laser-cutting, 3d Printing)

  3d Modeling

Prerequisites:

• Enrolling students must be between the ages of 11 to 18 (middle and high school students)

In a world where aliens have invaded and destroyed New York City, the iron structures of the skyscrapers are all that is left. Humans have developed this vehicle to climb up the frames and escape from the aliens whose inner magnetism render the iron structures deadly. 

This vehicle uses magnetic treads to stick to magnetic metal surfaces. The vehicle is controlled by a remote control, which make the two motors drive the treads forwards. The 3-D printed treads are attached to a wooden frame, which holds the magnets in place.