Penn State Geography Department

NASA

Faculty Coach:

Dr. Matt Parkinson

Project Summary

Team Ice had the responsibility of designing an operational prototype of an instrument deployment package for a robotic mobile energy balance (MEB) rover. The major project is sponsored by an AIST Grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This particular mechanism is part of a three year project that has been recently launched in conjunction with Georgia Tech, where scientists are currently developing the MEB base rover unit.  

The problem statement required a mechanism to deploy several instruments to be used to monitor ice sheet stability in Antarctica. The final product needed to be a working-scale prototype of such a mechanism. The product development process occured over a fifteen week period. The team agreed to provide a working, to-scale prototype that will meet the design specifications set by the sponsor.

The team was allotted a refundable budget of $800 for projectmaterials. However, The project sponsor was able to provide additional funding for larger purchases.

The team generated 6 concepts that were suitable for the problem. Using such design techniques as concept screening and concept scoring the Ribbon Lift design was selected. An instrument deployment package was designed and manufactured to mount directly to the existing Ribbon Lift.