Reflections on the Power of Making Real Things

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I most enjoyed the discussion portions of this course. It was fun to break away from the standard, monotonic, and formulaic business material from the other courses and to be given time to explore things that are in my personal area of interests. The maker day was probably the biggest tease. I really wanted to be able to play with the Arduino kit. I realize it was only one day because the course set out to accomplish more than just experimenting and playing. One big insight from this course was that the stuff I’m interested in pursuing is tucked away in several layers of “niche”. This means that communicating with the general public about these things is difficult. Difficult, not because folks finding boring (because its not), but because it does require a certain understanding of technology to be able to piece together meaning/applications/implications from what this work provides. So in short, my biggest challenge was learning how to communicate such a specialized area to non-space folks who don’t necessarily keep up with this industry. If I could go back in time to talk to my self in the beginning of the course, I would instruct myself to manage my time better! I wish I would have put together a working demo of what an online community in this field would look like. It would be like Facebook but for space folks playing with 3d printers.

Looking forward, I know that I will start a business of my own. I’ve always strived to be as independent as possible. In the past, I’ve run smaller businesses revolving my interests in music (restoring guitars, buying/selling guitars, helping bands get licensing deals, etc). I’m ready for the next challenge and opportunity to create something. I don’t yet know what that is, but I know that it will definitely be heavy on tech. Preferably something in space. Space is a boundless frontier with many challenges in the way of its exploitation. It is in those challenges that the opportunities reside. Bring it on and boldly go!

May 22, 2014

Now that I’m on the tail end of my undergraduate degree, I have experienced first hand the awesome transformative effect of education. This is the last line of text that I’m typing as a student of Baruch College. What a journey! Ad astra!

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http://www.space.com/24599-nasa-launches-3d-printing-in-space.html

When you search for 3d printing applications in space exploration, the results are overwhelming. While CubeSats utilize 3d printing, there are other aspects of smaller scale space exploration that utilize 3d printing. The photograph above is a 3d printed battery harness made by NASA interns last summer. I was fortunate enough to meet the students who worked on this particular project. This battery harness is for what is called a “sounding rocket”.  Sounding rockets are small rockets (about as tall as person) that are inexpensive to launch and used mostly by universities and researchers thanks to their low cost. The big difference between sounding rockets and CubeSats are that sounding rockets do not go into orbit. Instead, they fly parabolic trajectories exposing them only momentarily to space. This is great for experiments that don’t need to remain orbit. Putting a payload into orbit is not only technically more challenging, but also significantly more expensive.

I found the two photographs on my Facebook feed. They were posted by a fellow NASA intern and student at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. The gray component is a piece that was 3d printed to hold their particular experiment. This makes me rethink my model for CubeSat Farm. Even as CubeSats gain in popularity, a lot of research does not require an orbital flight. A short parabolic space flight is sufficient for a lot of researchers, and from what I’ve read, a sounding rocket can be launched with a small payload for less than $5000. Compare that to the current price range of a CubeSat flight ($50-100k).

In addition to this. Space exploration related technologies and themes are becoming more accessible. LitteBits just announced a partnership with NASA on a series of products for education. It’s worth mentioning that we used LittleBits products in our Maker Space Day.