How about we start talking about the more interesting things in this article. Last month Nasa and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) landed the heaviest, but most intelligent and technologically developed payload, ever to touch the Martian surface. I am of course referring to the 2020 Perseverance rover. It carries seven primary payload instruments, 19 cameras, and two microphones. The rover is also carrying the mini-helicopter Ingenuity, an experimental aircraft that will attempt the first ever powered flight on another planet.
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SpaceX did it again: SpaceX's latest Starship prototype went out in a blaze of glory.
The Starship SN10 spacecraft touched down successfully after a high-altitude test flight in March 3, a major milestone for the company and its crewed Mars ambitions. But the vehicle didn't manage to hold itself together, exploding about eight minutes after landing.
The big stainless-steel SN10 launched from SpaceX's South Texas site, rose 10 kilometers into the sky and came back safely to Earth for a smooth touchdown after 6 minutes and 20 seconds from liftoff.
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Space (What is space according to many scientific sources: Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction.) facts that probably you didn’t know:
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Space is completely silent (due to the vacuum-no air).
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99% of our solar system's mass is the sun.
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More energy from the sun hits Earth every hour than the planet uses in a year.
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One day on Venus is longer than one year on Earth and 10 days longer than 1 year on Venus.
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The universe is constantly expanding.
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A competed NASA space suit costs $12,000,000.
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There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on earth.
THE END!!!
Thank you for reading this article. It means a lot for us. Comment down below your thoughts and ideas and tell me your favorite STEM activities that we can discuss in later articles.
Geitonas student newsletter
Welcome to the second STEM article, called “The importance of 3D printing Part 1”
In this week’s article we will discuss about 3D printing, 3D designing and all the tips and tricks concerning 3D manufacturing. Last week I introduced you all to STEM and the fields that we are going to cover on my page. As we said before, STEM is an acronym from the words Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and it combines all these four major academic disciplines equally.
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How about we start talking about the more interesting things in this article.
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What is 3D printing?
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3D Printing is the process of contrasting a tree dimensional object from a CAD(computer aided design) model. This method of manufacturing is managed by either melting and cooling certain material (such as plastic, metal), FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling)/Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) or curing liquid/solid substances (such as resin), stereolithography (SLA) or melting a powder-like substance with a laser, Selective Laser Sintering (SLS). Both techniques require the material to be added and fused together by layering it down (layer by layer). By adding hundreds or even thousands of individual “2D” layers together, a 3D shape can be created. When 3D printing was first introduced, engineers were referring to it as a rapid prototyping (RP) technique. Only in recent years has the term additive manufacturing(AM) being used synonymously with 3D printing, since material is being added during the process of manufacturing, whereby subtractive manufacturing refers to the large family of machines with material removal as their common process of manufacturing.
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Types of 3d printing:
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1) Fused deposition modelling (FDM), also known as fused filament fabrication (FFF), or called filament freeform fabrication, is a 3D printing process that uses a continuous filament of a thermoplastic material. Filament is fed from a large spool through a moving, heated printer extruder head, and is deposited on the growing work. The print head is moved under computer control to define the printed shape. Usually the head moves in two dimensions to deposit one horizontal plane, or layer, at a time; the work or the print head is then moved vertically by a small amount to begin a new layer.
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History of additive manufacturing:
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The first experiments are dated from 1981. The first 3D printing attempts are granted to Dr Kodama for his development of a rapid prototyping technique. Unfortunately, he did not file the patent requirement before the deadline. Charles Hull was also interested in the technology and submitted a first patent for stereolithography (SLA) in 1986. He founded the 3D Systems Corporation and in 1988, released the SLA-1, their first ever commercial 3D printer.
Filament: This is the raw material for the FDM/FFF printer in a filament form. A filament spool is held on the sides or at the back of the printer and is fed into the extruder.
Extruder: The extruder, in simple terms, is a gear mechanism which pulls the filament and pushes it towards the hot end. The extruder can be called as a ‘cold end’.
Heater: This heater heats the solid filament to its melting point.
Hot End: The hot end comprises of the heat sink, cooling fan, and nozzle assembly.
Nozzle: The nozzle is the last element of the print head. It deposits the hot material onto the build platform in the desired geometry.
Build Platform: This is the bed onto which the material is deposited. The material sticks to the bed and the object is built. It can be heated or non-heated.
3D Printing is awesome
In the next STEM article, “The importance of 3D printing Part 2” we will talk about the other two types of 3D printing, SLA and SLS, and also observe real life uses and practises of such a machine. I will also offer you some interesting advice and tips so you can get started with 3d printing. So, see you next time.