High-Level Project Summary
This project is mainly focus on creating the origami model of James Webb space telescope. We developed knowledge and understanding in the telescope's structure. We solved the challenge by making a model. Through creating the model, we learned about the structure of James Webb space telescope and some of its structure's properties. We focused on two parts of its structure, the hexagon-shaped mirror segments and the 5 layers of sun shields. From this project, we realised that even the smallest detail in the telescope has its own property.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
We made an origami model of the James Webb space telescope in our project. Through making this model, we learned about the structure of the telescope and also the properties of some of its structures. We mainly focused on 2 parts, the 5 layers of sun shields and the hexagon-shaped mirror segments.
We learned that the sun shields are used for keeping the telescope cool. This is important as the telescope primarily detects infrared light. Therefore, external sources of heat and light might affect it. It has five layers of sun shields because each shield deflects some heat out of the sides and it is very rare to have a lot of heat sources to get through to the telescope. It deflects due to its shiny surface. The shield has a vacuum gap between them as the vacuum is a good heat insulator. The shields are also made from light material called Kapton, which has special thermal properties. The shields are also specially coated. We also found out that the shields are kite-shaped because it ensures the shield to be easily folded.
We also noticed that the segments are in hexagon shape because it is good for stability and will leave no gaps between segments.
We used papers from an unwanted workbook and some unwanted parcel boxes to make this model. We did this because we felt like it will be wasting materials if we just purchase something totally unused for this model as we can't really reuse them after creating the model.
Space Agency Data
https://jwst.nasa.gov/index.html : We used some of its key facts to solve our problems. We also used the pictures on this website to design our model.
Hackathon Journey
I would say it has been exhausting because creating artwork has never been my strength nor my teammate's. I learned a lot about the James Webb telescope, especially its structures and why they are structured in that way. We picked this topic because we are interested in astrophysics. We believed that this topic is related to what we are interested in and it is nice to try to make an art piece. Our approach was to first make a model and then try to come up with questions related to it. We found the mirror segments and the sun shields very interesting, which is why we talked about them in the video report. The main challenge was creating this model. We simply resolved it by designing it before starting. I would like to thank my teammate Zhou, as she was very helpful and nice. She came up with brilliant ideas and provided me a lot of useful information.
References
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.