Students fromDade County Middle Schoolin Trenton, Georgia have used their school’s FDM 3D printer to produce flight-ready components for the International Space Station.
美国宇航局的预感(High school students United with NASA to Create Hardware) program seeks to empower STEM students through project-based learning activities, exposing them to modern manufacturing technologies like 3D printing. By designing and manufacturing products valued by NASA, the students are given the opportunity to partake in real deep space missions without needing two years of astronaut training.
Bob Zeek, Co-Founder of HUNCH, states, “The biggest thing in my job is seeing the light bulbs go off when students make the connection of taking a project or a task and knowing where it’s going to fly on the space station, when it’s going to fly, and the self-gratification. All of these factors go hand-in-hand with inspiring the next generation.”
The HUNCH Program
Hunch于2003年推出，最初只涉及阿拉巴马州的两所学校和德克萨斯州的一所学校。18年以来，该计划已在全国277名参与中学的277名学生中招募了2500多名学生。迄今为止，学生已经为空间站计划生产了1,500多个项目，其中1340个已飞往国际空间站，其中包括一套最终使用的太空行走线。
Despite its name, the HUNCH program is not limited to hardware manufacturing, as there are six key focus areas for students to contribute to – design and prototyping, software, hardware, sewn flight articles, video and media, and culinary arts. To participate, schools must meet a set of minimal qualifications and have the capability to complete the requirements of the program. To maximize the benefits of the program, HUNCH organizers recommend that the school faculty supervising the students includes teachers with hands-on experience in at least one focus area.
Whitney Young, HUNCH Space Act Agreements manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, explains, “The astronauts will put in requests for things that they need on the space station, and essentially it is a wish list that gets cast out to school systems.”
3D printing flight-ready ULTEM parts
Dade County’s ISS components were printed on a newly acquiredStratasys Fortus 450mcusing high-performance ULTEM filament, a material characterized by its high strength, flame resistance, and excellent dielectric stability. The school has stated that it will also be printing upcoming parts using carbon fiber-reinforced composites. Dade County is reportedly the only school system taking part in NASA’s HUNCH program to have access to both of these industrial 3D printing capabilities.
Zeek concludes, “This is a one-of-a-kind experience for the students in Dade County to kick-start their careers and interact with a piece of NASA. Empowering and inspiring the next generation of students is the key mission for the NASA HUNCH Program, and will certainly ring true in Trenton this year. You never know, one of those students just might be the next NASA astronaut, engineer, or scientist.”
在离开教育系统之前，让学生有机会尝试3D打印，这是促进参与并鼓励采用STEM的好方法。3D打印机制造商EOSrecently announced its ongoing support for theTexas Rocket Engineering Lab(TREL) at the University of Texas in a student design challenge. Specifically, the company will help TREL print advanced aerospace components for a28 foot-tall liquid bipropellant rocketas part of the Base 11 Space Challenge.
Elsewhere, 3D printing education providerPrintLabhas previously partnered with engineering software developerAutodeskto launch a 3D printing design challenge for school students under the age of 18. Dubbed the做：有能力的挑战, the competition tasked STEM students with designing and 3D printing a prototype product for individuals with mobility issues in their hands, with the help of Autodesk design software.
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Featured image shows Dade County middle schoolers showcasing their ULTEM ISS parts. Photo via Dade County Middle School.
