FAIRCHILD TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDEN INNOVATION STUDIO Powered By MOONLIGHTER
Growing Beyond Earth
Moonlighter has entered into a multi-year partnership with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and NASA to engage the maker community in solving some of the challenges of long range space travel. This unique collaboration has three main objectives: The development of the first ever makerspace in a botanic garden, educational programs, and annual maker challenges. Supported by NASA, IMLS, Nation of Makers, Make:Projects, Adafruit, and Instructables, these initiatives are empowering any and all curious minds to be a part of creating the future of space farming!
Learn more:
The Innovation Studio at Fairchild Garden
Moonlighter is helping Fairchild to build the first ever makerspace in a botanic garden. Although the space will share many of the same technologies and tools found in other makerspaces, this lab will focus on the development of innovations advancing botany and food production in space. Learn more about the new GBE Innovation Studio here!
STEAM Workshops and Camps
A series of innovation workshops and camps will help prepare the community with the technical skills, design methodologies, and basic sciences needed to help in the various challenges and initiatives of the Growing Beyond Earth program. These workshops complement the ongoing data collection and research projects at Fairchild by allowing community innovators to develop devices based on their scientific findings. You can sign up for the various innovation workshops at Fairchild’s site.
Maker Challenges
An annual nation-wide maker challenge will crowdsource the solutions for plant growing technologies in space. Challenge 1 asks makers to design a geometry that maximizes the amount of edible biomass in the 50 cubic centimeter volume of the growth chamber aboard the International Space Station. The low gravity environment opens up the possibilities of three-dimensional use of space to grow even more plants in the same amount of fixed space – paving the way for long range space missions in the future! Challenge 2 seeks to utilize electronics and sensors to make the plant growing chamber as smart and self sustainable as possible. By measuring and controlling the moisture, light, and air, the growth chamber would be able to maintain an optimal environment for healthy plant growth. And lastly, challenge 3 calls on makers to develop a fully autonomous planting and harvesting system, enabling unmanned farming so that astronauts will have food waiting for them when they arrive on the Space Station or Moon Base before traveling off to Mars and beyond!
The Year 2 Challenge is LIVE and open to submissions from High School, Collegiate, and Professional Teams. Register at Make:Projects to participate.
The first year maker challenge winners and community submissions can be found on Instructables.