Hi everyone,
I’m wondering if anyone at your space has been hacking on any space-related
projects (or wants to start). And by space, I mean the inky black thing
above our heads, not the hackspace itself.
I ask because SpaceGAMBIT http://www.spacegambit.org (a US-gov-funded
hackerspace space program I work for) is looking for cool projects to fund
this year. What we have in mind is:
- Websites/software/games to explain and inspire people about NASA’s Asteroid
Grand Challenge http://www.spacegambit.org/2014-call-for-projects/(finding all asteroids that are threats to human populations, and figuring
out what the heck to do about them)
- How to educate more people to get involved in the Asteroid Grand
Challenge (e.g. training materials for stuff like asteroid detection, light
curve analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_curve, etc)
- Making telescopes more accessible to citizen scientists and makers
- Anything else that’s frickin’ cool and space related
We can fund projects up to 10,000 USD, and all projects should be completed
by Aug 30 2014. Other requirements:
- Open source/hardware/documentation/everything
- Linked with hackerspace/makerspace/other collaborative space
- Accounting: we need a decent report of how you spend the money
- Nothing restricted under ITARhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations(a bunch of laws that make it difficult to openly share info. Covers stuff
like rocketry and other things that go kaboom. Space suits too)
More info is at http://www.spacegambit.org/2014-call-for-projects/ . If
you’re interested, get your applications in by May 19!
To infinity and beyond!
Alex C-G
PS: Since I’m a Brit, it’d be great to get some British project
applications and show the Americans what’s what!
What we have in mind is:
- Websites/software/games to explain and inspire people about NASA’s Asteroid
Grand_Challenge (finding all asteroids that are threats to human populations,
and figuring out what the heck to do about them)
- How to educate more people to get involved in the Asteroid Grand Challenge
(e.g. training materials for stuff like asteroid detection, light_curve
analysis, etc)
- Making telescopes more accessible to citizen scientists and makers
- Anything else that’s frickin’ cool and space related
If anyone wants to build a rover I’d be up for that, although my time is quite limited.
Probably better than a rover, which has now been done many times before, might be an automated agriculture system. In the long run for off-world living agriculture will need to be fully automated, and building such systems may also help to feed Earthlings too.
In an automated agriculture system nearly everything needs to be recycled - the water and the nutrients - with only the energy being an external input. Small microcontrollers can be used to manage pumps and sensors to maintain a regulated environment optimised for plant growth. Ideally both planting and harvesting should be automatic too, using something like a Cartesian robot arrangement.
If you’re looking into automated agriculture, etc, check out haesh.com, aka
the Hackerspace Earthship. it’s one of the projects SpaceGAMBIT funded in
2013. Aims to be fully-enclosed one-person habitatOn Wednesday, April 30, 2014 12:12:40 PM UTC+1, Bob Mottram wrote:
On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:29:43AM -0700, Alex C-G wrote:
What we have in mind is:
- Websites/software/games to explain and inspire people about NASA’s
Asteroid
Grand_Challenge (finding all asteroids that are threats to human
populations,
and figuring out what the heck to do about them)
- How to educate more people to get involved in the Asteroid Grand
Challenge
(e.g. training materials for stuff like asteroid detection, light_curve
analysis, etc)
- Making telescopes more accessible to citizen scientists and makers
- Anything else that’s frickin’ cool and space related
If anyone wants to build a rover I’d be up for that, although my time is
quite limited.
Probably better than a rover, which has now been done many times before,
might be an automated agriculture system. In the long run for off-world
living agriculture will need to be fully automated, and building such
systems may also help to feed Earthlings too.
In an automated agriculture system nearly everything needs to be recycled
- the water and the nutrients - with only the energy being an external
input. Small microcontrollers can be used to manage pumps and sensors to
maintain a regulated environment optimised for plant growth. Ideally both
planting and harvesting should be automatic too, using something like a
Cartesian robot arrangement.