Awards & Nominations
TeamySeed has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
Global Nominee
Salastra
High-Level Project Summary
Astronauts are facing problems with having fresh food on longer missions in space, and with that comes the lower intake of needed nutrients. such as B1, C and K. To solve this challange we designed Salastra, an automated plant growing system. It is a stowable system, that can grow spinach with minimal crew attendance. It is relatively compact in volume, and relatively light. Unlike the past plant systems developed, this one is more automated and does not require manual watering. It also uses resourses that are already available on the spaceship such as O2, CO2 and water.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
This is a theoretical solution for the challenge Have seeds will travel. It depicts an automated system that can grow plants from seeds to harvest. Starting off strong with spinach, but having space to be modified to work with all sorts of plants, we have the Salastra. It monitors all the needed parameters for plant growth, and it has implemented mostly-automated mechanisms that can control those paremeters. The control and monitoring will be enabled thanks to MEMS technology.
- The seeds will be planted in pillows
- The pillows will have two inlets, one for water, the other one for fertilizer.
- The watering system will have a capilary structure, going to each pillow enabled thanks to an elastic water tank.
- The temperature will be monitored with MEMS sensors and controlled with heater and fan.
- The CO2 levels will be monitored, and if the CO2 level is too low, we can take CO2 from the removal system and the crew cabin
- If there is more oxygen in the system than the amount needed, it can be released in the cabin. The reuseability of CO2, O2 and water is also a key element in this system.
- The light we will use comes from magenta LED diodes (that help with photosynthesis)
We hope to achive a more automated system for plant growth, a system in which there won't be a need for a lot of crew attendance.
For the simple model of the system we used Solidworks, and for the code for the temperature control we used Arduino Ide.
For hardware MEMS sensors are needed as their dimensions are small and they are reliable. The MEMS sensors can be used for measuring every needed parametar (temperature, CO2 and O2 level etc. Also a microcontroller is needed for getting the outputs of the sensor and controlling the actuators (fans, heaters etc.). The programming language can be C or Python.
The system also offers a solution if you want to use it on Mars or on the Moon, where a lot of radiation is present, with easily screwable walls (layered Aluminum) to protect the plants and main chamber. That is also applicable when the spaceship passes through a high radiation area. It can also be used in arid areas on Earth.
The plants and their process of growth can be monitored by a camera or the see-through layer of plastic surrounding the growth chamber.
Space Agency Data
1.https://www.nasa.gov/content/growing-plants-in-space
2.https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/advanced-plant-habitat.pdf
3.https://www.nasa.gov/feature/how-nasa-prepares-spacecraft-for-the-harsh-radiation-of-space
Hackathon Journey
This was our fist Space Apps for every member of our team, and we had a blast. We learnt how to work together and overcome problems. We chose the Have seeds will travel challenge because we understood how important is to have good nutrients and tasty food while being far from home, and also we thought that it would be interesting to learn how plants are grown in microgravity and to see if we will find a good solution. Our approach to the challange was to first study the current ways of growing plants in space, and then using that knowgledge, together with the interdisciplinary knowlegde of every member of the team, to create a better way of growing seeds in space. When we had to resolve setbacks, we tried to overcome them using brainstorming and coming up with solutions as they came.
References
1.https://www.nasa.gov/content/growing-plants-in-space
2.https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/advanced-plant-habitat.pdf
3.https://asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/food-production/default.asp
4.https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2346/86415/ICES-2020-28.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y&fbclid=IwAR3wSLnLiKmDlESePgEoNFklfD63fPaM-m_yrGEDMeZas9O750m9EXH-zz0
5.http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene4c19.html
6.Gao, Wei, et al. "Effects of daily light integral and LED spectrum on growth and nutritional quality of hydroponic spinach." Agronomy 10.8 (2020): 1082.
7.https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/unca/f/P_Johnston_Comparison_JrnlUngRes_2014.pdf
8.https://www.nasa.gov/feature/how-nasa-prepares-spacecraft-for-the-harsh-radiation-of-space
Tools:
1. Solidworks
2. Arduino IDE
Tags
#plants #hardware #spacetravel #engineering #spinach
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.