I'm really passionate about #STEMeducation! Every since 2010 I have been working on ways to make STEM fun, and showcase how it can bring extremely rural and urban communities out of poverty. In fact, that was why Great Space for Girls was launched at Johns Hopkins University.
To that end - Rose Haft and I discussed how kids (or nerdy adults) could send some of their own code into outer space on episode #1 of the DSiS Podcast at http://tinyurl.com/DSiS-Podcast-1 As the Kickstarter campaign continues we plan to release a video and an Augmented Reality demo to better explain how that will be possible. But for now check out, follow, and star the DSiS GitHub account at https://github.com/OpenSourceIronman/DeathStarInSpace
73,
Blaze Sanders
Chief Designer @ DSiS
Update 5: RECOMMEND-A-FRIEND!!!
almost 7 years ago
– Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 02:44:47 AM
3 days in and 10.6% funded. That is a little bit behind schedule, so I personally need your help! Lets get to space as a community of artists, engineers, and explorers! If you haven't already, be sure to share this Kickstarer (http://kck.st/2KzReZY) OR your digital badge (http://tinyurl.com/DSiS-Digital-Badges) via your social media channels or forward this email. Tell your friends and family in person, text message, Skype, email, carrier pigeon, etc - whatever gets the job done! Maybe even consider increasing your pledge...
To reward you Earthlings - we are excited to introduce our RECOMMEND-A-FRIEND program. For each friend that pledges $40 or more, you recieve either a FREE "Physical name in space (and BACK)" reward (worth $25) OR a new $15 reward we will be announcing April 20th (Hint: Think Planetary resources).
The instructions are simple (feel free to make a throw away Twitter account to do this):
Get your friend to pledge $40 or higher and have them send us a tweet @DeathStarSpace saying, "@X told me to back the Death Star in Space Kickstarter http://kck.st/2KzReZY", where X is replaced with your Twitter handle.
You can then reply to your friends tweet with something like, "Yes I did, a 4 inch fully operational @StarWars #DeathStar with LASERs must go to space to celebrate #TheRiseOfSkywalker!"
We will then reply to your tweet to confirm with, "We are on it! T-Minus 8 months..."
73,
Blaze Sanders
Chief Designer @ DSiS
Update 4: Space Tolerant Open Source Space Hardware [TECH]
almost 7 years ago
– Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 08:54:39 AM
Figure 1 - Basic overview of open source hardware courtesy of DIY Space Exploration
Hello World,
Making space hardware open source comes with many challenges and benefits as outlined by my old friends at DIY Space Exploration and Mach 30. Making sure not to get arrested for US federal violations such as; International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Export Administration Regulations (EAR), and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is important :)
That said - DSiS hardware can be viewed, commented on, and forked from Upverter:
To make the DSiS PCB space tolerant, key manufacturing specs include using; reduced tin whisker solder paste, Rogers 4003 or Thermoset PCB material, ULTEM 1010, 9085 & ABS-ESD7 3D printed material, thermal spreaders, dual solder mask color, thermally conductive vibration proofing epoxy, and NASA outgas compliant Via paste PHP-900 Series IR-10FE.
From here on out TECH updates will be released every 3 days. The next topic... Supercapacitors: How Do They Work. You can ask technical questions in the comments below, on yesterdays April 11 Reddit AMA, or on Twitter using the hashtag #AskDSiS. I will answer all questions on a mid campaign Q&A Facebook LIVE video (www.facebook.com/blaze.sanders) on April 21th at 1 pm PT.
73,
Blaze Sanders
Chief Designer @ DSiS
Update 3: Free Death Star for Your School? [STAR WARS IX TITLE SPOILER WARNING!!!]
almost 7 years ago
– Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 06:45:09 PM
I feel so grateful for the support we've received thus far. From all of us here at DSiS, THANK YOU!!!
I have always been really passionate about #STEM_Education since college (See Great Space for Girls), and so today I wanted to give back and gift one unassembled Death Star ($600 Kickstarter Reward) to a school anywhere in the world. Just visit www.deathstarinspace.com/kickstarter to vote for your school every 12 hours!
Your school will receive one full scale (100 mm diameter / 3.93 inch) 3D printed Death Star sphere, one unpopulated PCB, and all the electronics that go with it.
Hey teachers! Assembly of all these parts could make a great semester long extra credit lab... As a bonus I would love to web conference with your school once a week to answer any technical or Star Wars questions. I kind of like Star Wars :)
Converting our currently functional Earth Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) into space-tolerant ones by hot swapping FR-4 with expensive Rogers 4003 based PCB material.
Testing our three 350 F supercapacitors (not a units typo) in a thermal-vacuum chamber, to make sure they retain enough voltage and current for this 8 min mission. If not (10% chance of failure), we will replace them with a fully tested single LiFePO4 battery from Pumpkin Space Systems.
Fine tune (change by < 1.5 millimeters NOT redo) the 3D printed shell in ULTEM 9085 (or Aluminum) and then stress test using www.onshape.com - thus guaranteeing that our Death Star will survive its 5.5G rocket launch.
Figure 1 - Vacuum chamber that we will heat with fire and cool with CO2 to test -40 C to 110 C (-40F to 230F)
The long term goal for this project (2 to 3 years) is to send a Death Star into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for at least 6 months, and turn on its LASER to transmit power to another CubeSat and/or send peoples names via LASER light out of the solar system. We are making the suborbital PCB's space tolerate by using Rogers 4003 based PCB material, thermal spreaders, dual solder mask color, via paste fill, tin-whisker free solder chemistry, and thermally conductive vibration proofing epoxy in preparation for this long term goal.
You can ask technical questions in the comments below, on yesterdays April 11 Reddit AMA, or on Twitter using the hashtag #AskDSiS. I will answer all questions on a mid campaign Q&A Facebook LIVE video (www.facebook.com/blaze.sanders) on April 21th at 1 pm PT.
