Day 1 Section 4

Build bridges and moving

Problem synopsis

As per the last e-mail, transport is essential for exploration. You cannot be expected to walk everywhere on this new planet.  Your vehicle is now built (I hope) but you now need to be able to move it. It looks like the land is covered in large crevices, they might be rivers, but they might not be, at this stage, we don't know. 

What we do know is that we have developed a bridge-building kit designed nearly 200 years ago, (remember the year is 2124). A video explaining the concept can be found here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaNOuVgwPos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_bridge

https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2023/08/the-inglis-bridges/

The difficulty we have is that we only have a limited amount of bridge-building kit and a limited amount of time- it took 5 years to complete the Golden Gate Bridge for example, and that is not going to be reused elsewhere. 

We have technology that allows flat sheets to be rolled and unrolled several times. We have ways of tying these flat sheets together and then undoing it, although once that happens it's unlikely that it can be used again. It's a bit like pieces of paper and card, and masking tape. 

What is the maximum weight your model can hold over a minimum of 30 cm? 45cm? 60cm?

Can you program your vehicle to drive over your bridge? (Make sure that the bridge is not very far off the floor, just in case it fails!

As well as that.

Your vehicle moves, congratulations. On closer inspection,  you realise the spot where you landed has a very mixed terrain.

There are numerous trays. One is sandy, one is rocky, one is spongy and slightly moist and there may be others. A modular approach to transport might come in very useful!

AND!

Uh Oh! There is a strange gas ahead. I am not sure it's safe for you to go in there, buggy or not. You will have to program the buggy on automatic to make its way through the maze. 

What sensors will you need on the buggy? Bearing in mind you don't necessarily know what dangers you are going to face. Do you know what each of these sensors does?

• Acidity

• Humidity

It's up to you to set a maze that other groups will take. Remember though, if you make it hard for them, you might get a really hard maze back

STEAM process

In your journals follow and record your progress through the problem-solving process.

Analysis - What do you understand the problem to be? What are your success criteria? What are you working towards? What type of ground are you considering? 

Design - Sketch out some ideas on how you could build your transport. The transport base is pretty standard but the chassis is completely user definable. What is it going to be? Take stock of the materials you have available to you. Make the net as cool as you want to!

Build - Make it! Test it! Record the outcomes, what happened? Did your building stay upright? Did your equipment get damaged? Do you think it would be waterproof? Record the tests so that they can be reviewed. 

Evaluation - Link back to your success criteria - did you succeed? If so, yeah! If not, what else could you have done?