Engineering for Mining in Space
Getting safely off the planet, and into space is only one of the challenges to solve in mining in space. The more complex challenges emerge when it comes to landing, and beginning mining operations on the target celestial body. In this sub-unit you will looking at engineering a technology to use in your mining operations. You will work In slightly larger groups for this task as you will be designing both mining systems and therefore the group can be split into two pairs, one on each system.
In these tasks you will be using the Lego Mindstorms system to build and program your mining vehicle, you can download the software to connect to and code you robot from the link below.
In these tasks you will be using the Lego Mindstorms system to build and program your mining vehicle, you can download the software to connect to and code you robot from the link below.
Mineral Exploration Sensor
In this engineering challenge you will design a sensor that can be mounted to a vehicle to explore the surface of the celestial body searching for possible target sites. This sensor will use common properties of minerals to as a basis for determining possible areas of high mineral content. For the purposes of this task different minerals will be determined based on colour The final test of your mining exploration sensor will be completed as follows
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Terrain Navigation System
This engineering task involves designing a vehicle drive system that can autonomously navigate a wide variety of different terrains. This navigation has two parts, firstly is the design of an appropriate suspension or drive system that can go over the top of a range of increasingly difficult terrains. Secondly is an obstacle avoidance system that allow the vehicle to drive freely in a given boundary area without hitting any of the vertical obstacles. These two systems when paired together will allow the vehicle to drive over the smaller obstacles and safely navigate around obstacles that are too big for the vehicle to drive over. The final test of your terrain navigation system will be completed as follows, there will be two parts to this test Part 1 - Obstacle Avoidance
Part 2 - Traversing Terrain
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