Subject:
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Re: JPL engineer needs help with space instr. model
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.build
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Date:
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Fri, 5 Nov 1999 04:57:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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354 times
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In lugnet.build, Mark Helmlinger writes:
> Wow! that's quick!
>
> In lugnet.build, Kevin Loch writes:
> > Cool! Actually, I'm surprised NASA diddn't do this with sojurner back
> > in 96.
>
> Actually, I would not know. JPL is one of many NASA centers, and there
> are 6000 employees at JPL with hundreds of projects and no chat rooms
> like this, to be sure. Legos have been used to build rovers and stuff
> for kids as part of outreach efforts, but to my knowlege, no project
> has made an "official" Lego model. What other projects have done is
> contract out to a model maker - we did that too and got a $10K estimate!
>
> Our instrument is rather arcane, and the ideas we need to demo is
> something we have been puzzling over for a while on the back-burner.
> Nothing fancy, and we kind of like the aww-cute reaction to using Lagos.
> The down-side is not being taken seriously or seen as playing too much.
> Ya, I know, really square, but the media blows the strangest things all
> out of proportion.
Are you talking about modeling the MISR Terra Spacecraft out of Lego?
>
> > This probably means gluing the non-moving parts together. That is how
> > all of the "official" models like store displays are built.
>
> Ya, I figured as much. What kind of glue? Cyano-acrylate (super glue)?
> And I would not do any gluing until last, of course. Even the order one
> glues in is critical, for sure.
>
> > For most of us this is a vary expensive and time-consuming effort.
>
> Right. I would never volunteer my own collection (or my daughters).
> I can fiddle with it during lunch or something. Expense-wise, well,
> I imagine if I spend a lot less than 10K everyone will be happy, and
> a lot less could be as much as $300 or so.
Unless the scale is really out of control, I would guess that it could be done
pretty cheaply - unless you wanted to motorize it and use Mindstorms.
>
> > very few elements are made in chrome and particularly gold.
>
> Humph. I wonder if I could get some parts chromed at another shop . . .
I would suggest a can of spray paint. That is the cheapest way to coat bricks
with gold or silver colors. I actually painted bricks silver when I was a
kid, although they didn't look as good as the real silver bricks we have
today.
>
> > This would be the easiest part. The answer to the complete inventory • question
> > is mostly yes, you will probably find all the parts you need in the • "official"
> > ldraw releases. I would recommend MLcad for this step.
>
> ldraw? MLcad? Details, please. Or at least a URL.
Go to www.ldraw.org and read about MLCAD, which is what you want. It uses the
parts library for an older DOS based program called LDraw, which you will also
need to download and run to create your parts library. MLCAD is about as easy
to use as a Lego CAD program can be.
>
> I'm actually in the Science Division, my degree is in physics. I'm
> called an engineer because anyone without a PhD is called that, and
> I'm much handier with tools than anyone else in my section. I have
> been able to get by in the shops here with simple line drawings, mostly
> because what I need is not too complex. Lego-cad would be cool, though.
>
> > There is no catalog of parts that us hobbyists have access to.
>
> Mega-bummer, man. I wonder why.
The main reason for no catalog of parts is that (1) Lego doesn't offer one and
(2) everyone has their own name for an obscure part and Lego hasn't set a
standard. There are some people working on one, but it is way off from being
finished.
> > However, LEGO has been known to support various private artists and • corporate
> > initiatives that "show off" their products well. I can't imagine that they
> > would not see the benifit in NASA media models made of LEGO elements.
> > Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't been done already.
Not likely to happen after the Lego Concentration Camp set an artist made.
[remainder snipped...]
Mike Poindexter
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: JPL engineer needs help with space instr. model
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| (...) MISR is one of 5 instruments bolted onto the Terra platform. I am interested only in a model of what's under MISR's radiation shielding, and at that, only certian parts. Check out www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov and navigate to the EOS site for a more (...) (25 years ago, 5-Nov-99, to lugnet.build)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: JPL engineer needs help with space instr. model
|
| Wow! that's quick! (...) Actually, I would not know. JPL is one of many NASA centers, and there are 6000 employees at JPL with hundreds of projects and no chat rooms like this, to be sure. Legos have been used to build rovers and stuff for kids as (...) (25 years ago, 5-Nov-99, to lugnet.build)
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