High-Level Project Summary
The system that will perform this task has been likened to the charging stations of electric vehicles. An aluminum-silver coated insulation device will be installed so that the radiotropic fungi, which are the energy converters in the system, receive a sufficient amount of radiation and produce energy and are not affected by temperature. With the help of mushrooms, usable energy will be obtained from radioactive energy. This energy will also be transferred to the Rover. The rover, on the other hand, will meet the energy required for the fungi to continue their lives and move from here. If these stages are successfully completed, the task will be completed.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
To complete this challenge, it is planned to create an energy storage system using radio tropic fungus. This system is based on the fact that radio tropic fungi, which were discovered for the first time after the Chernobyl disaster, can produce energy thanks to radiation. The atmosphere layer of Venus is very thick, while the rays from the Sun should reflect from the surface and go up and escape, they are reflected back due to the atmosphere layer. The rays are trapped between the surface and the atmosphere layer and cannot escape. For this reason, Venus has a lot of radiation and is the ideal place for our system. The main purpose of the system is to establish charging stations that are lowered to the surface of Venus with protective capsules and to provide energy storage for the rover. This system is inspired by the charging of electric vehicles at charging stations. In order for the radio tropic fungus to survive on Venus without being damaged, an aluminum silver-coated protective system will be made. In this way, the fungus will convert the radioactive energy into usable energy without being affected by the temperature on Venus. The energy obtained will be transferred to the rover. This energy will contribute to the vital functions of the fungi and the system during the movement of the rover.
Space Agency Data
Various space agencies were used to create the mechanism to perform this task. These are: TUA (Turkish space agency),
Nasa official site data,
ESA(european space agency),
DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt),
JAXA(japan aerospace exploration agency),
SRON (Netherlands Institute for Space Research). While researching issues such as the heat balance in space shuttles, the amount of oxygen, gravity, and the temperature on planets, help was received from these sites. The issue inspired by this project initiative was the energy shortage in the world. It was analyzed that the project would not be efficient if it was tried to be done in the world, and therefore, the decision was made to move the project to Venus. In this way, radioactive energy can be converted into usable energy.
Hackathon Journey
Throughout this project, we learned a lot about Venus as a team. In order to create a system suitable for the challenge, we researched information such as the surface, atmosphere and radiation level of Venus, tried to find materials suitable for these conditions, and learned a lot about the radiotropic fungus that allowed us to form the basis of the system. In addition to academic knowledge, we gained the experience of coming up with and proving a great idea as a group in a short time. Since we were students staying in the dormitory throughout the process, we spent every minute working together. Thanks to group work, we learned that it is possible to achieve difficult tasks in a short time. The reason we chose this challenge was because we were all eager to come up with a new project idea. However, we chose this challenge because it would satisfy us to learn something new and create a brand new system as a team. When we thought about the radiation relationship of this fungus, which we know to have been discovered in Chernobyl before and used in space exploration, and considering the high level of radiation due to the thick atmosphere of Venus, we decided to make our project on the radiotropic fungus. Of course, there were minor tensions as we were always side by side, but we solved the problems maturely by talking calmly one on one. In general, we did not have a big problem as we made the decisions as a team. Finally, we would like to thank our seniors who helped us.
References
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000457
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214157X2100280X
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925838817339348
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0001616079900439
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359836818325241
https://sbir.nasa.gov/SBIR/abstracts/21/sbir/phase1/SBIR-21-1-S3.03-3308.html
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1519/venus-resources/?page=0&per_page=40&order=created_at+desc&search=&tags=Venus&category=324
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/automaton-rover-for-extreme-environments-aree/
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.16.205534v7.full
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/97JB02671
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0032063399000367
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Konstantin-Aslanidi/publication/266487050_Characteristics_of_Extremophylic_Fungi_from_Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant/links/54b62d970cf28ebe92e7b36c/Characteristics-of-Extremophylic-Fungi-from-Chernobyl-Nuclear-Power-Plant.pdf
Tags
#venus #fungus #fungi #renewableelectric #hardware #spaceexploration #chernobyl