Name of Sponsoring Organization: NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium
Sponsor Point of Contact (name): Arash Takshi
Email Address:
Name of Technical Mentor (i.e. Subject Matter Expert): Arash Takshi
TM Email Address:
Project Title: CubeSat size ecosystem for growing plants in space
Required EE Area(s) of Expertise: Please note: Only US Citizens are allowed.
Brief Project Description: NASA is looking for a team of all US citizens to design a CubeSat size chamber for growing plants in space. In this project, a team from EE will work with a capstone team at ME to design a professional system. While the ME team will work on the mechanical design of the system (chamber design and irrigation), the EE team will design a plant health monitoring system with various sensors to measure chemicals in the environment and wirelessly transmit the data. The students have to submit a proposal to NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium (FSGC) by September 9, 2022 (https://floridaspacegrant.org/program/ksc-senior-design-projects/). The Technical Mentor (Dr. Takshi) provides assistance in submitting the proposal. If the project is funded, NASA will award the project up to $2000 toward the project expenses.
Major system products expected from this project: A. Design a microcontroller based system to measure various gases in a chamber. B. Design a sensor network for monitoring the health status of a plant. C. Working with a ME capstone team to meet the requirements of the project for both the mechanical and electrical designs. D. Reporting the results of the measurements to NASA FSGC and documenting the design of the developed instrument.
Parts of the project that “Engineering Design” is expected (e.g., mathematical calculations and/or verification simulations): Please see project description !
The level of support (Time: technical guidance, materials, computing, financial, etc.) for the project. If no financial support will be provided, please offer an estimate of the Materials Cost: The team has to commit to meet regularly (weekly) with Dr. Takshi all through both semesters. Assistance will be provided to submit the proposal to NASA FSGC. The samples for testing will be provided. Financial support is available, if the team wins the FSGC award.