Info

This was undertaken as a team project over a 2 day period for a hackathon hosted by the Imperial College Space Society, in partnership with Spacebit - a UK space robotics company. We were set the task of designing, presenting, and demonstrating a system that could safely lower Spacebit's Asagumo rover down from a height of 0.8 m onto the lunar surface.

Problem

The challenge included strict dimensional and mass specifications. Furthermore, the robot had to be deployed the correct way up, using no pyrotechnics for the deployment. Additionally, deployment had to be smooth so to not churn up dust from the surface of the moon, and conditions such as the extreme temperatures of space had to be accounted for.

Solution

Our team's proposed solution involved lowering the robot on a lightweight cage, that would detach from the external shell (where the robot is stored in transit) and be gradually lowered to the surface via a motor-assisted winch. Furthermore, the base of the cage would be made from a honeycomb mesh, acting as a crumple zone to soften the landing.

Project Overview & Outcome

The above video summarises our team's process and final outcome. This was all done within the short 48 hour time period.

My main role for this hackathon was creating the CAD model for our deployment cage, as well as animating how it would work.

At this point, I had never done animation before, and so the animation that can be seen at the end of the video was a result of what I had quickly taught myself during the second day of the hackathon.

I have since improved my animation ability, now confident in using Blender for product animations, and recreated the original video to further practice these skills.

Soft Skills

Problem Solving | Leadership | Communication & Teamwork

Hard Skills

CAD Modelling (Solidworks) | Product Animation (Blender)