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Competition for Junior Designers within NASA’s Lunar Loo Challenge

Competition for Junior Designers within NASA’s Lunar Loo Challenge

herox

herox

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OPPORTUNITY DETAILS

Total reward
0 $
Nonprofit organization
Deadline
17 Aug 2020
Study level
Opportunity type
Opportunity funding
Full funding
Eligible Countries
Eligible Region
All Regions

Nasa ,in cooperation with Herox, is inviting creative  junior designers (under the age of 18 ) all over the world to participate in its Lunar Loo Challenge- Junior Category. NASA seeks new designs for a toilet that will work both in microgravity and lunar gravity. NASA will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024, and the goal is to do this in a way that uses less mass, occupies less volume, is more energy efficient, and has streamlined processes. 

Competition Background:-

  • Lunar toilet design concepts should allow astronauts to urinate and defecate in both microgravity and lunar gravity.  Microgravity is what is generally considered “zero-g” and is experienced as weightlessness.  The g-force is not actually zero in microgravity; it is just very small.   Lunar gravity is approximately one sixth of Earth’s gravity, so urine and feces will fall down.  

  • The process for using proposed toilet designs must be relatively straightforward.  Anything that is very time intensive or complicated to use will generally be less attractive to NASA.

  • Complete solutions will be ones that can support a crew of two astronauts for 14 days, while controlling odor, accommodating different types of waste (urine, feces, vomit, diarrhea, menses), and different gender users (female and male). 

  • Additionally, toilet designs must be able to accommodate sick crew members dealing with vomiting and diarrhea.  Although the preferred method for capturing vomit will be emesis bags (“throw up” bags), bonus points will be awarded to designs that can capture vomit without requiring the crew member to put his/her head in the toilet.

Toilet Design Specifications:-

The specifications listed below represent the maximum allowed values.  Proposed designs should at least meet them and will preferentially be lower than them.  The toilet design should:

  • Function in both microgravity and lunar gravity.

  • Have a mass of less than 15 Kg in Earth’s gravity.

  • Occupy a volume no greater than 0.12 m3.

  • Consume less than 70 Watts of power.

  • Operate with a noise level less than 60 decibels (no louder than an average bathroom fan).

  • Accommodate both female and male users.

  • Accommodate users ranging from 58 to 77 inches tall and 107 to 290 lbs in weight.

Conditions and Rules:-

  • The Prize is open to anyone under the age of 18, participating as an individual or as a team.  If you are 12 years old or younger, you will need to have a parent or guardian register and submit on your behalf. 

  • Individual competitors and teams may originate from any country, as long as United States federal sanctions do not prohibit participation (see here).

  • If you are a NASA employee, a Government contractor, or employed by a Government Contractor, your participation in this challenge may be restricted.

  • Submissions must be made in English. All challenge-related communication will be in English.

  • No specific qualifications or expertise in the field of waste management  is required.

  • NASA encourages outside individuals and non-expert teams to compete and propose new solutions.

  • Judging Panel:

    • The determination of the winners will be made by HeroX based on evaluation by relevant NASA specialists.

  • By participating in the challenge, each competitor agrees to submit only their original idea. Any indication of "copying" amongst competitors is grounds for disqualification.

  • All applications will go through a process of due diligence; any application found to be misrepresentative, plagiarized, or sharing an idea that is not their own will be automatically disqualified.

  • All ineligible applicants will be automatically removed from the competition with no recourse or reimbursement.

  • No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win the competition.

  • Void wherever restricted or prohibited by law.

  • All submissions become NASA's property and will not be returned.

Prizes:-

  • In the Junior category, this challenge will recognize the top three submissions, one per age group.  The authors of these three submissions will each receive: public recognition from NASA and from HeroX, a winner’s certificate, and an item of official NASA-logoed merchandise.  

  • Additional “mystery” prizes may also be awarded to winners of the Junior category.  Such prizes could include a video call between the winner’s science class and an astronaut, or NASA-logoed specialty items (patches, pins, etc).

About Herox:-

HeroX is a crowdsourcing platform that empowers anyone to create, compete or share challenges to solve local and global problems. Herox successfully collaborated winning and fulfilling NASA contracts through their Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation. HeroX is positioned as the social network for innovation and therefore has a broader and more uncredentialed crowd, which pairs well with experts in development and design.

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