January 2008 Issue
STUDENT COLUMN
Going Way, Way Up
Armed with LEGO Mindstorms, students of the Schulich School of Engineering are putting their brains into a Spaceward Foundation challenge. The class project and other competitions under the foundation’s banner could help scientists develop a new type of space travel — the elevator
BY MELISSA TIERNEY
University of Calgary
Student Columnist
(Engineering)
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HIGHER ELEVATION |
Have you ever wished that going to space was as easy as riding an elevator? Crazy as it may sound, this form of space travel may actually come to be — and first-year engineering students at the University of Calgary have put their minds to the challenge.
A design and communication project, the Space Elevator Challenge invites the first-years to take part in the Spaceward Foundation’s competition. The students use programmable LEGO Mindstorms to create an elevator prototype. They’re given five weeks to design, construct and test a working robot that, with no external support, climbs as quickly as possible to the top of an eight-foot tether.
The rules are simple: use any materials you choose, including the LEGO Mindstorms, but do not alter the LEGO in any way. Other than that, the sky is the limit.
Faced with endless possibilities, the Schulich School of Engineering students began brainstorming a plethora of ideas, among them high-powered fans, rockets and elastic bands. They even considered using a hand-held fan to propel a two-lb. control box up the tether.
But after re-evaluating the materials, most students decided on a relatively simple design. The majority of the designs used the provided LEGO wheels and motors in a symmetrical structure, and programmed them to spin in opposite directions to move the structure up the tether.
Using Not eXactly C programming guides provided with the Mindstorms control box, students programmed their robots to spin their wheels until they reached a specified height, and then stop.
According to the Spaceward Foundation, competitions like the Space Elevator Challenge “infect the engineering and science community” with a passion for the idea of a space elevator. The foundation is holding a variety of competitions, including the Climber (Power Building) Competition and the Tether Strength Competition.
In the Climber Competition, teams scale the tether using only power transferred from the ground using beamed solar power. The net weight of the robot must be less than 110 lb. and must move at a minimum velocity of two metres per second. The U of C competition is comparable to this, only it uses the programmable control box instead of solar power.
The most difficult part of building a space elevator is finding a material both strong and light enough to support a 60,000-mile tether. To address this, the Spaceward Foundation has created the Tether Strength Competition, which has teams coming up with the best Space Elevator ribbon sample while adhering to strict specifications on weight, width and length.
There’s big money in the tether competition. The winner, in fact, receives
$900,000.
Many teams are working with variations of carbon nanotubes. These allotropes
of carbon are extraordinarily strong and have an exceptional length-to-diameter
ratio.
The Spaceward Foundation hopes that challenges like the U of C’s will help it demonstrate the “feasibility and sheer simplicity of the space elevator concept” — and bring it closer to reality. In fact, the foundation’s goal is to generate enough interest in the project that within five years the basic space elevator designs can be proven feasible and construction can begin.
Maybe an elevator to space isn’t such a crazy idea after all.
Engineers Get Wet for Charity
What do university professors, charity and 4,000 lengths have in common? The
University of Calgary Swim-A-Thon, of course.
The Swim-A-Thon is put on by the Engineering Students Society, and runs for the duration of November. Each team has between two and five people, one of whom is a staff member. For every quarter donated to a team, one member must swim one, 50-metre length of the pool.
The competition is between the different engineering departments, and this year even the first-years have a team. The team that swims the most lengths, and therefore raises the most money, wins.
At press time, the leaders were the electrical engineering team with $93.61 and geomatics with $64.22. Final champions were announced Nov. 30 at midnight when the competition closed. Engineering students hoped to raise $1,000 in all.
Proceeds from the Swim-A-Thon are donated to the Vocational and Rehabilitation Research Institute, which supports persons with disabilities.