High-Level Project Summary
Traveling to Mars is a high probability in the near future. Sustainability in space travel and dwelling is also an emerging issue. Our aim is to produce credible ideas to improve the lives of people living in space and become the foundation for space inhabitation for all residents of the planet Earth. We focused on the self-sustenance of a team carrying out a mission on Mars. With the design systems we produced, this team should be able to repair and maintain their equipment while also producing tools and furniture to get by in their daily life on this Mars mission. We prioritized multi-purpose tools and furniture to eliminate the disadvantage of limited space and material.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
What exactly does it do?
With the help of three 3D printers, our designs of tools and furniture helps a team to carry out a 1-year mission on a Mars habitat. In service to further colonization, sustainable space travel, and dwelling, perfecting a sample habitat design is a critical goal. Our work is the foundation of a solution to this goal.
How does it work?
This question needs detailed answers, specific to every tool in this project.
Modular Furniture
We proposed a design of modular units that when put together form different furniture that the team might need in their day-to-day life. The base unit consists of an L-shaped concrete base and an interlocking number of 3D plastic boards. A plastic board with desired dimensions could be formed by combining a number of the aforementioned base unit parts. Using these combined boards and the L-shaped concrete base the user can form a lot of different furniture including but not limited to seating units, shelf units, storage units, small beds, cupboards, tables, a kitchen aisle, an agriculture area, and a food storage unit.
Which printers will generate it?
Concrete and plastic printers. ABS is used for plastic.
Overall measurements
L-Shaped Base
35 cm (length) x 40 cm (width) x 35 cm (height)
5 cm (thickness)
Plastic Board
30 cm (length) x 10 cm (width) x 2 cm (thickness)
Assembly Instructions
Plastic Boards
The boards have connection rods and housing for the rods. The rods go into the housing to form combined boards. No further instructions.
L-shaped Base
L-shaped Bases are almost purely used in the form that they have while printing with one instruction. User should insert, at minimum 3, plastic slide mechanisms (rods) at desired heights, while the concrete is wet. This is to place the plastic boards in the concrete base.
Description of Use
These combined units can be used in a variety of ways to the user's imagination and desire. The proposed uses include seating units, shelf units, storage units, small beds, cupboards, tables, a kitchen aisle, an agriculture area, and a food storage unit.
Modular Tools
We also proposed modular tools to save valuable material and space in the limited resources of the habitat. We designed 2 plastic handles that both have housings to insert tools. There are 2 different handle types. One for smaller tools such as screwdrivers, toothbrushes, utensils, and so on. The other handle type is for larger tools such as hammers, shovels, pickaxes, and so on. Handles can be produced as needed but to serve the purpose of the design if multiple tools are not needed at the same time one handle should suffice.
Which printers will generate it?
Plastic and metal printers. PLA is used for plastic. High alloy steel is used for metal.
Overall measurements
Small handle
Radius for handle bottom end: 19.0 mm
Height for handle bottom end: 10.0 mm
Radius for handle middle part: 12.3 mm
Height for handle middle part: 100.0 mm
Semi-major axis for handle top end: 19.0 mm
Semi-minor axis for handle top end: 14.0 mm
Height for handle top end: 20.0 mm
Big handle
Radius for handle bottom end: 32.0 mm
Height for handle bottom end: 17.0 mm
Radius for handle top part: 20.7 mm
Height for handle top part: 293.0 mm
Height for screwdriver: 113.1 mm
Height for toothbrush: 113.1 mm
Height for fork: 118.0 mm
Height for spoon: 118.0 mm
Height for shovel: 132.0 mm
Length for pickaxe: 172.0 mm
Height for pickaxe : 54.0 mm
Assembly Instructions
All tools and handles have the same assembly instruction. A cylindrical pin is inserted into the hole of the housing, passing through the hole that is printed in the tool as well. No further instructions.
Description of Use
All tools have their own purposes that are the same as their purposes on Earth.
Replacement Rover Wheel
For the replacement rover wheel, we did not deviate from the design of Perseverance. We chose aluminum for the outer body and chose titanium for the treads, wheel hub, and support structure between the hub and the outer body. The whole wheel is done with metal for providing strength to deal with the environment of Mars. The treads are deeper than both Curiousty's and Perseverance's (as a ratio). The tread pattern is designed in a way to both provide performance and show the rover's heading.
What benefits does it have?
The main priority in our design was to save resources as much as possible because a mission on Mars could have unseen conditions that the team in the habitat would need to adapt to. Every resource is infinitely precious and being economical could provide solutions out of future catastrophic conditions.
What do you hope to achieve?
What we hope to achieve is, providing a foundation for a sustainable way for space traveling and dwelling.
Disclaimer
When we downloaded the model from the Resources tabs provided in the challenge and opened it in Rhino, the unit for dimensions was required. What we found in our research for dimensions was not compliant with the restrictions of the printer. But since the dimensions of the model were customizable with our preference of units and the Discord channel did not provide certain dimensions, we chose a set of dimensions that allowed us to print the outer body of the wheel in one piece.
Our chosen dimensions for the wheel
Outer radius for the outer body: 93.0 mm
Thickness for the treads: 3.7 mm
Outer radius of the wheel hub: 45.0 mm
The Softwares We Used
In this challenge we used the following softwares: Rhinoceros, SolidWorks, Vectornator and Adobe Photoshop.
Space Agency Data
https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/mars-rover-curiosity
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200001427/downloads/20200001427.pdf
Hackathon Journey
As a team, our space apps experience was spectacular. We chose our challenge to accommodate our team members' skills collectively. Outfitting a Mars habitat appealed to both designers and engineers among us. In our research to complete this challenge, we learned a lot about what it takes to design a habitat in space. Our approach was to first, comb through the given resources to produce ideas and then brainstorm what an astronaut might need on this mission. After discussing these ideas among our team members we decided which ones would be best and acted according to them. Our team resolved challenges and setbacks by relying on each other.
References
https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/mars-rover-curiosity
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200001427/downloads/20200001427.pdf
https://redshift.autodesk.com/articles/what-materials-are-used-in-3d-printing
Tags
#sustainable #mars #space #3d