Airbus - Living on the Moon

The following is a single lesson in a larger series of Airbus - Discovery Space - Living on the moon tutorials.

Project Overview:

Imagine being able to travel into space. Training for months to blast off into outer space and visit the international space station or walk on the moon. Imagine living and working on the moon looking back at the earth every morning when you wake up. In this project you will learn how to use Tinkercad to try and realise these dreams. Follow a series of steps in this tutorial to design and build breathing apparatus fit for your space exploration mission to live on the moon. Once you have learnt the basics try and complete a creative challenge to develop your breathing apparatus to suit the needs of your mission. Enjoy.

Instructions

1. Continue to the next step.

Step 1: Introduction

In this lesson you will learn how to build breathing apparatus for your space exploration.

You will need to follow all of the Airbus tutorials to design and build your basics for your space mission. Once you are comfortable with the skills learnt feel free to be as creative as you wish using the challenges to adapt and build your own space exploration components in Tinkercad.

Instructions

1. Continue to the next step.

Step 2: Breathing Apparatus

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Let's have a look at the shapes you are going to use to design the oxygen tank. You will use the following shapes; Two Cylinders and Two Half Spheres.
2. Continue to the next step.

Step 3: Breathing Apparatus: Oxygen Tank

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Half Sphere onto your workplane.
2. Rotate the shape 180 degrees so that the top of the Half Sphere is touching the workplane.
   
3. Click on the white squares when the shape is selected to resize the shape to the following size; 10 (L) x 10 (W) X 5 (H).
4. Continue to the next step.

Step 4: Breathing Apparatus: Oxygen Tank

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Cylinder onto your workplane.
2. Select the Cylinder and resize it to the following dimensions; 10 (L) x 10 (W) x 20 (H).
3. Select the black arrow in the middle of the cylinder to raise the shape above the workplane, do this by 5mm.
   
4. Hold down shift and select both shapes so that they can be aligned together. Select the align tool in the top right of your browser. Use this to align the shapes as you can see in the picture above.
   
5. Continue to the next step.

Step 5: Breathing Apparatus: Oxygen Tank

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Half Sphere onto your workplane.
2. Select the Half Sphere and resize it to the following dimensions; 10 (L) x 10 (W) x 6 (H).
   
3. Select the black arrow in the middle of the Half Sphere to raise the shape above the workplane, do this by 25mm.
   
4. Hold down shift and select all three shapes so that they can be aligned together. Again select the align tool in the top right of your browser. Use this to align the shapes as you can see from the picture below.
   
5. To make it easier to edit the Oxygen Tank we need to group all the shapes together. In order to do this select all three shapes and in the top right of your browser select the groupbutton. This joins the three shapes and will make them all the same colour.
6. Continue to the next step.

Step 6: Breathing Apparatus: Oxygen Tank

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Cylinder onto your workplane and resize it to the following dimensions; 4 (L) x 4 (W) x 3 (H).
2. Select the black arrow in the middle of the Cylinder to raise the shape above the workplane, do this by 30mm.
   
3. Hold down shift and select your locked shape and the cylinder so that they can be aligned together. Again select the align tool in the top right of your browser. Use this to align the shapes as you can see from the picture above.
   
4. Use the group tool to join these shapes. Once you have done select an appropriate colour, in this case I have used yellow, select the lock icon in the same menu so that the shapes don't move around as you add valves to your breathing apparatus.
   
5. Continue to the next step.

Step 7: Breathing Apparatus: Valves

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Let's have a look at the shapes you are going to use to design the valves for the oxygen tank.
2. You will use the following shapes; Four Cylinders, three Tubes and a Cone.
3. Continue to the next step.

Step 8: Breathing Apparatus: Valves

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Cylinder onto your workplane.
2. Select the Cylinder and resize it to the following dimensions; 2 (L) x 2 (W) x 5 (H).
3. Select the solid tool and change the colour. In this case I have used silver to represent a metallic material. Lock the valve in position to help design the rest of the component.
   
4. Continue to the next step.

Step 9: Breathing Apparatus: Valves

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Cone onto your workplane and rotate the Cone 180 degrees so the top (the point) of the Cone is touching the workplane.
2. Select the Cone and resize it to the following dimensions; 5.5 (L) x 5.5 (W) x 6 (H).
   
3. Use the shape options tool and edit the amount of sides that can be seen on the shape. If you change the number to '8' this will start to make the shape look more like a handle.
   
4. Click the black arrow in the middle of the Cone to drop the shape -3mm below the work plane (see image for help).
   
5. Drag a box (hole) onto your workplane, this does not need resizing. Use the black arrow to drop the box below the workplane - this will be -6mm. Now align the Box and Cone together directly above one another - the shapes should intersect.
   
6. Now select both shapes (Cone and Box) and group them together. This will remove any material from the Cone that the Box intersects with.
   
7. Raise the valve handle above the workplane by 5mm and align it with the Cylinder you created in the previous step.
   
8. Change the colour of the handle to a more appropriate colour. As I would imagine this component to be made from rubber I have used black to represent this material. Lock this component in place.
   
9. Continue to the next step.

Step 10: Breathing Apparatus: Valves

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Cylinder onto your workplane and change the colour to an appropriate representation of the material, in this instance a metallic colour grey.
2. Select the Cylinder, rotate it 90 degrees and resize it to the following dimensions; 8 (L) x 2 (W) x 2 (H).
3. In the shape options change the 'bevel' option from '0' to '2.5', this will add some extra detail to the valve.
   
4. Select the Cylinder and align it to one side of the first part of the valve created in step 8. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the Cylinder until it is intersecting with the other part of the valve - you do not need to group these items.
   
5. Use the black arrow to raise the Cylinder above the workplane by 2mm. Once you have done this lock the part in place.
   
6. Continue to the next step.

Step 11: Breathing Apparatus: Valves

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Cylinder onto your workplane and resize it to the following dimensions; 4 (L) x 4 (W) x 4 (H).
2. Pull in a separate Cylinder (this time a hole), resize the shape to the following dimensions; 1.50 (L) x 1.50 (W) x 6 (H).
   
3. Align both Cylinders so that the hole is directly in the middle of the solid (orange shape) - Now group them both together. You should now have a hole cut from the middle of your valve connection.
   
4. Now we need to align the Valve connector to the rest of the component. Use the align tool to position your connector in the correct position at the end of the current valve and ensure it sat centrally.
   
5. Change the colour of the shape to represent the material you are working with, in this case I am using silver to represent Aluminium.
   
6. Continue to the next step.

Step 12: Breathing Apparatus: Valves

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Drag a Tube onto your workplane and resize it to the following dimensions; 2.75 (L) x 2.75 (W) x 0.75 (H).
2. In the shape options change the sides from '20' to '8'. This will give your nut a more authentic look.
   
3. Align both the nut and the valve component, change the colour to an appropriate material to represent the material of the nut. Now copy (ctrl + C) and paste (ctrl + P) the component onto your workplane and lock the nut into position.
   
4. Continue to the next step.

Step 13: Breathing Apparatus: Valves

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Use the black arrow to move the 'new' nut that was copied and pasted in the previous step up to the top of the Valve - 4.50mm
   
2. Now resize the height of the nut to 0.50mm.
   
3. Align both the nut and the valve component. Now copy (ctrl + C) and paste (ctrl + P) the component onto your workplane and lock the nut into position.
   
4. Continue to the next step.

Step 14: Breathing Apparatus: Valves

In this section of the tutorial you will begin designing the tank that will hold oxygen required for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Move the new nut from 'step 13' into away from the valve component so that it is easier to edit before we place it back onto the component.
2. Rotate the nut 90 degrees.
   
3. Now resize the nut to the following dimensions; 4 (L) x 4 (W) x 4 (H).
   
4. In the shape options change the wall thickness to 5mm.
   
5. Align both the nut and the valve component. Lock the new component in place.
   
6. Continue to the next step.

Step 15: Breathing Apparatus: Assembly

In this section of the tutorial you will complete the assembly of your breathing apparatus for you to survive safely in space.

Instructions

1. Select the Valve component that you have just created and use the shape options to unlock the component so it can be moved and edited.
2. Highlight all of the valve components - there should be a blue border around the Valve once they have been selected.
   
3. Align the Valve with the centre of the Tank.
   
4. Use the black arrow to pull the Valve 33mm above the workplane and in line with the top of the tank.
   
5. Drag the valve over the top of the oxygen tank. You can change the size of each movement, I have changed the grip to 0.5mm to make this more accurate.
   
6. Once in position select all and lock in place.
   
7. Congratulations you have managed to make an oxygen tank and breathing apparatus for your mission to live on the moon.
8. Continue to the next step for an idea of what you could do to develop and adapt your breathing apparatus to suit your own needs.

Step 16: Breathing Apparatus: Creative Challenge

Well done on completing this tutorial. Now you should use all the skills covered in this tutorial to design and model your very own breathing apparatus.

Be imaginative and enjoy modeling your breathing apparatus!

TOO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

Instructions

1. How is it going to be used?
2. How will the oxygen be stored?
3. How much oxygen do you think an astronaut will need?
4. How will the breathing apparatus be carried safely?