Design Specifications (C1.1)

Introduction

When designing something, it's important to review the design specifications and order them in importance. These shoes will be used indoors in a habitat so design specifications work with these parameters. Our primary design needs to have a high friction sole to prevent slipping. It also needs to produce no static electricity, this will prevent sparks which could cause fires. There are also other considerations that involve walking on the moon like compression or shock absorption that are also important things to consider.

Design Specifications

Customer Needs: The lunar habitat shoes must be able to not slip with only 1/6th the weight of an average human which is around 23 lbs. They need to be flexible enough to be able to be compressed into small storage compartments.

Size and Weight: The shoes should have sizes that could fit a variety of shoes sizes, and should weigh 4 lbs.

Safety and Legal Issues: The shoes should be safe to use and not endanger the lives of the user.

Performance: Should be easy to use and helpful

Materials: Should be made from low cost, high friction, and low static electric materials, the product should be easy to manufacture.

Product Life: These shoes should last 2-3 years. These shoes should not require maintenance.

Operating Environment: Lunar habitats, low friction environments

Target Cost: It should be relatively cheap to manufacture no more than a couple hundred dollars

Lunar Habitat Shoes

Andrew Schaefer, Chris Lewis, Reed Vilar

Lunar habitat residents

Design Constraints (With Weighting Scale .5-2):

• Product must have a high friction coefficient on the sole. (Around levels of rubber, 1.15) (2)

• Product must produce no static electricity (1.5)

• Product must be compressible for storage and transportation (Vacuum seal) (1)

• Product must last on average 2-3 years (1.5 year minimum) (1)

• Product must be lightweight. (1)

• Product must be fire resistant (1)

• Product must be easy to use with generic sizes (Small, Medium, Large) (1)

• Product must not cost more than $100 (0.5)

• Product must require no maintenance (0.5)

• Product must have a good name (0.5)

Conclusion

For our Lunar Habitat shoes we weighted the high coefficient of friction our highest priority. This is because it's very important that it shows functions correctly. We then weighted producing no static electricity the second highest because it's vitally important to prevent sparks from being generated and possible fires. Compact storage was next, this is important because there is only so much room on rockets and in spaceships to spare. The project lasting at least 2-3 years was next because it's important for the shoes to be durable. The shoes need to be weighted to help prevent muscle atrophy in the low gravity, and it helps increase friction as well. The shoes must be fire resistant or fire proof, and the sizes must be generic to simplify design. The product should be relatively cheap to manufacture, and the shoes must not need maintenance when in use. Lastly the least important specification is the name of the shoe.

To test these criteria we would compare it in different way to the control group. We could measure the force and movement to the ground or rough surface to measure friction. We could rub it against the surface and take a charge to determine how significant the static electricity is that it is producing. We could test the securing mechanism we could apply forces to the top of the shoe and see how well it holds. By doing these tests against the control group, we are determining what things work well for the final product.

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