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Structures Team Members: Aaron Khal, Akshay Kapur, Angelina Costa, Izaan Rizvi, Mirabelle Kakushadze, Mira Levine, Sebastian Sebastián Perdomo HernandezHernández, Sophie Nguyen
Task: Design a chassis for a high-altitude balloon test. The design must protect the interior components from temperature fluctuations and environmental exposure. Some sensors had their own individual requirements when implemented in the chassis:
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- SPOT Trace
- Battery
- Altitude/Motion Sensor
- GPS Tracker
- Temperature Sensor
- Pressure/Humidity/Temperature Sensor
- An Air tag
- Video transmitter (VTX)
- Muon Detector
- Spectrometer
The structure would be a cube with a horizontal divider plate in the middle. The spectrometer and secondary camera were placed unfixed on the bottom floor because the spectrometer was tightly fitted with the divider plate. As for the Argus Board, battery, and miscellaneous (temperature, pressure) sensors, those were fixed with zip ties to the divider plate to minimize movement. The top of the chassis was originally planned to be where the eye bolts were fastened but then was omitted from the final design to optimize weight. The top was redundant due to there also being foam covering it and to make opening the contents of the chassis easier. To remove the top chassis, the bottom chassis had drilled holes to fasten the balloon.
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After the balloon popped, the payload fell at from a max recorded height of 51k 89k ft and a speed of hit the tree-line at roughly 6 m/s (19.7 ft/s). all the components survived the landing sans the interior chassis, which broke off at the corner. The temperature inside the chassis had a final reading range of 44.54 to 60.76 degrees Fahrenheit (update for average temp).
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- Train every member in the structures team on CAD and basic manufacturing (3D printing, soldering, handheld tools) before beginning the project.
- Establish a clear timeline with deadlines for each member.
- Allocating better tolerances for the slider and consider wiring when determining dimensions of the components. Calculate head emitted of active components. Foam had more than enough insulation for the electronics.
- Consider using PETG instead of PLA to increase durability (but mind that would make the chassis heavier).
- Create a guide for each sensor so that all members know its appearance, purpose, and any structural considerations.