The Assemblers has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
We developed a way to assemble things like :rockets and hotels .Our solution is important as it decrease the cost of sending folded parts to space by assembling them on space. Our solution is a creative way to align and attach ships and hotels .
First :In Alignment mechanism :
We decided to make the two parts perfectly aligned by making a hoop on each corner of the mother ship moving on sliders two on each side and the slider will be extended along all of the son ships to allow the hoops to be used on aligning all of the son ships ,also there will be four fixed hoops on each son ship 2 on each side which are adjacent to the sides containing the hoops moving with the sliders ,there will be 4 thrusters 1 on each hoop of the mother ship hoops ,each thruster will move through the son ship hoop facing it, then the mother ship hoop then each thruster will get back to the docking station on the mother ship hoop ,then the 4 ropes will be pulled simultaneously causing tension force that makes the son ship coincident to the hopes allowing the parts to be perfectly aligned.
Secondly : pulling mechanism
there will be 2 cylinders next to each other on each hoop ,one is a docking and refueling station for the thrusters and it is fixed ,and the other cylinder will be a pulley for the rope ,
Releasing mechanism :
When we want to release the thruster the pulley will release some rope allowing the gate to open and release the thruster to path trough the hopes and return back to the station, After the thruster , docks into the docking station the gate will close on the thruster's end of the rope as a locking mechanism to prevent tension on the thruster then the pulley will revolve around itself making the rope collected around it and creating a force that pulls the son ship to the mother ship and after alignment ,the son ship will move towards the mother ship by making the hoops move back on the slider
Third:Attachment mechanism
the son ship will be provided with four cylinders on each corner and there will be slots for them on the mother ship
,Also there will be a through hole on the cylinders of the son ship and the slots on the mother ship ,Also there will be small cylinders inside the through hole of the mother ship cylinder slots two for each one and there will be springs holding them ,after alignment the son ship cylinders will move towards slots by the hoops which are moving on sliders, and when they touch the small cylinders on the through hole
,The small cylinders will move away from the cylinder and when it's aligned with the through hole the small cylinders will enter into the through hole inside the son ship cylinders because of springs pressuring it so the son ship will be attached to the mother one. We hope to make space assembly simple and low on cost.
we were inspired by Tug of war game to design a mechanism to achieve perfect alignment
we used solid works, UNITY and adobe after effect
we didn't know how thrusters work,
we had a lot of brain storming to achieve he idea of perfect alignment .
we had lack of technical skills.
we used this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP4_Q7iIlb0 to understand the idea of assembling in space
we used to be inspired by this mechanism : https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exep/technology/in-space-assembly
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dKCzpOGYGdfP1PAeIwLqvU5sLGQ_u0v5?usp=sharing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP4_Q7iIlb0
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exep/technology/in-space-assembly