Engineering Design Pathway

Capstone Project

What is a Capstone Project?

• Traditionally, a Capstone Project incorporates every class and study you have taken since you started secondary school.

• This Capstone project weights heavily toward the STEM subjects - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - with a liberal dose of communication, government, economics and literacy.

• The Capstone is traditionally a ‘real-world’ engineering problem or the development of a new product.

Capstone Challenge

• The Capstone Challenge is to develop part of, or all of, the design necessary to plan a space settlement in orbit around the Earth.

• Social engineering is often critical to product development.

• Engineering design is necessary for all the components of the space settlement.

• Basic information that will assist you follows this slide and is available in greater detail in handouts from your instructor.

Purpose

• Whether you work as an individual, on a small team, or as an entire class, the purpose of the space settlement drives every other decision.

• For example, if the space settlement is strictly for research, less staff would be needed than if the space settlement is to be an amusement park.

• The idea of varying gravity on a roller coaster is an intriguing one for any adreneline junkie!

Purpose Plus

• Once the purpose has been established, matching objectives to the purpose need to be determined.

• For example, a long-term objective may be to create a safe haven for plant seeds in case a major natural disaster hits the earth.

• A short-term objective may be to provide a safe haven for older populations suffering from osteoperosis.

After the purpose….

•HOW MANY people are going to reside permanently on the space settlement? •This drives EVERYTHING from this point forward along with the purpose of the space settlement.• 1,200?• 5,000?• 10,000?• 100,000?

After the purpose….

•What kind of people are residing permanently on the space station (Demographics)?• Married Adults• Families • Single Men and Single

Women• Children

Going forward

• Jot down some ideas that arrive from watching this presentation.

• Any ideas that fit can be sketched out and later drawn in a working drawing using Computer Aided Design software.

Going forward Continued

•Remember, a working drawing shows as many views as necessary to construct a part.•An assembly drawing is necessary to show how something is assembled.

Ideas

• Every single facet of the space settlement included in the presentation will require an appropriate drawing: assembly, sectional, auxiliary, and working drawings.

• Everything from a new desk lamp to a mode of personal transportation are possible for the Capstone project.

Ideas Plus

• For YOUR Capstone project, determine what components of the space settlement match your career interest.

• Jot down some ideas and sketch out some designs that may apply.

Assignment

• At the end of this power point, turn in your ideas to your instructor who will then determine which ideas need to be continued on to a sketch and then eventually, finished in a working drawing.

• Any additional ideas you have overnight can be presented tomorrow as well.

5 Areas for Consideration

• The first consideration has already been discussed: Purpose.

• The remaining four are: Structural Design; Construction; Life Support; and Social Structure

Construction

• There are a lot of variables that go into construction of a space settlement.

• First, the designer must come up with a projected sequence of events or a timeline.

• What happens first?• This needs to be designed concurrently with

the structural design in order to estimate the need for materials, metals, and supplies.

Construction Plus

• The designer has to decide where the metals and materials will come from for the space settlement. Several options are available including the Earth, the Moon, and the random asteriod that wanders by sometimes.

• How will the materials and metals be acquired? Transported to the location?

• Where will the workers be housed? Robots?

Structural Design

• What orbit is optimal for the space settlement? Watch out for satellites and the Moon!

• How will gravity be created? If through rotation, what speed of rotation?

• Are the working and living areas integrated or separated?

• Where will operations be located in the design?• What is the SIZE of the thing? Shape?

Structural Design Plus

• Will Manufacturing, Industry, Commerical Businesses be located centrally or dispersed?

• How will data be collected, stored, managed, distributed?

• Where will the food be grown? (More on that under Life Support)

• Where will the energy come from to power the space settlement? Solar, Battery, Coal, Electricity, etc.

Structural Design Plus

• How will products, objects, people move around inside?

• Where will docking go between the settlement and the Earth?

• What transports will be used between Earth and the space settlement? (This is one HUGE Capstone project by itself)

• What fuel is used for the transports

Capstone

• Does the STEM integration start to make more sense to you (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)?

• Not only does engineering designers incorporate the STEM disciplines, they use communication and literacy along with the drawings to convey ideas.

Quality of Life

• What are some of the requirements to sustain life?

• What about quality of life?

Environment

• Gravity • Water• Oxygen• Food• Safety• Waste Management• Medical Support• Entertainment

• Artificial gravity is the emulation in outer space or free-fall of the effects of gravity felt on a planetary surface. It can be achieved by designing for the use of some different force, such as the centrifugal force that is felt within a rotating space habitat.

• Artificial gravity is desirable for long-term space travel or habitation, for ease of mobility, for in-space fluid management, and to avoid the adverse health effects of weightlessness.

Gravity

Gravity Plus

•The structural design will be used to create gravity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity#Requirement_for_gravity

Water

• Where does it come from?• How will it be collected for recycling?• How will it be recycled?• How will it be distributed?• How will bodies, clothes, food be kept clean?• This is ONE huge Capstone project right here.

Oxygen

• Where does it come from?• How will it be recycled?• How will it be distributed?• Will the exhalations of members of the space

settlement impact the atmosphere of the station? Besides its primary constituents – nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour – exhaled human breath contains over one thousand other compounds at trace levels.

Oxygen Continued

• Some suggest a plant system that would take consituents of human exhalation and convert it back to oxygen.

• Checkout the Capstone project at the link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_diagnostics

Food

• Will all the food be imported from Earth?• If not, where will the farms be located?• What will be grown?• How will it be grown? • Hydrophonics (soil-free)• Aquaculture (cultivating freshwater and saltwater

populations under controlled conditions)

More on Food

Will Food be…•Safe, Sustainable, Affordable?•Vegetarian?

•One Capstone project may be to design a system that sprays nutrients into the root systems of plants•How will the food be processed? Distributed?

Safety

•Public Servants?•Law Enforcement?•Weaponry?•Radiation• Shields• Meteors/Asteroids• Solar Flares

•Aliens?•Will a Capstone project need to design shields for the ship, low-impact side arms for law enforcement, containment fields for lawbreakers, meteors, etc.?

Waste Management

You have GOT to have Waste Management•Human & animal •Clothing•Paper•Plastic•Capstone project might be containers that lock in the products and compress for recycling or shipping off the space settlement for disposal or for recycling•How collected?•Where collected?•How Treated?NOTE: Agriculture generates tremendous waste like corn stalks, animal byproducts, etc.

Medical Support

• Are Medical Doctors kept on staff available for everyone?

• Are there specialists?• If so, who and how many?• Will major surgery patients be shipped back to

Earth?• Will Medical research be conducted on site?• What research will be conducted?

Social Structure

• Government• Work• Living Space• Recreation• Education

Government

• What type of Government will be in the Space Settlement?

• What Military presence and whose will be there?

• What type of judicial system is in place for lawbreakers?

• One Capstone project may be to develop a Chain of Command for the entire Space Settlement.

Education

• Space Settlement inhabitants drive the need for education.

• A small, younger population requires more in the form of pre-K, K-12, and post-secondary options.

• One Capstone project would be to design a classroom that takes advantage of some of the interesting scientific anomalies generated in a space station.

• Another would be to design special desks or other teaching equipment needed for the classroom that would be able to be modified as the students change size.

Work

• How does the Space Settlement become fiscally self-sustaining?

• Traditionally, manufacturing a product from raw materials is the best way to have a continuous lucrative income

• Catching and mining asteroids is one idea• A Capstone project would design a ‘snatcher’ that

could automatically grab passing astral bodies• There are industries that would benefit from a low

oxygen or low gravity environment for manufacturing• A Capstone project might investigate these industries

and modify existing technology for space

Work Plus

• A lot of the manufacturing and work will be driven by the purpose of the space settlement and the demographics of the permanent residents.

• A large children population would require additional staff for support

• A large single population might require more older targeted entertainment than G rated

• An aging population has different surfacing needs

Living Space

• The living space will be driven by the permanent residents and the purpose

• A large temporary working population has different requirements than a large temporary tourist population

• If a large percent of the population is family nuclear units, multiple bedroom living quarters are required.

• One Capstone project may be to design an ideal living space for a family of some specified number.

Living Space Plus

• Another Capstone project may be to design pods than can be interconnected to provide flexible space as families change in size.

• Another Capstone project may be to design furniture that ‘transforms’ from one thing to another.

• Some major cities have beds that double as book shelves where the beds hinge back up into walls during the day and the books are held in place by a bar that easily retracts or is removed.

Living Space Continued

• Where are the temporary people going?• Beds & Breakfasts?• Inns?• Hotels?• Hostels?

• What amenities are available to both permanent and temporary residents?• Cable• Internet• Telephone

Last but not LEAST

• Recreation!• Parks, walking trails, gardens• Shopping• Restaurants• Movie Theaters• Opportunities ONLY available in space like space walks, lunar races, day

trips to Mars• A new sport under low or zero gravity• Library (actual books or digital)• Convention Center• Concert Hall• Religious services or Chapel• Spiritual Retreat• Several potential Capstones here to design anything from park benches to

sculpture to an outdoor, drive-in movie theater in space.

RECAP the CAPSTONE

• Turn in your jotted ideas to your instructor• Write down any more ideas you have tonight

for homework and turn in as requested• Discuss your Capstone project with your

instructor• Sketch Ideas/Brainstorm• Design• ENJOY!