Engineering Report
12/07/2014
Victor Luo
We have been eating pretty lavishly, but are getting low on meats and breads so it’s time to start rationing and go Spartan. Make bread starting today. Pretty successful Jalapeño cornbread.
Note that we used 8 gallons of water for the green hab yesterday.
Today we completed our secret engineering project: creating a fail-safe shut-off switch for the water pump inside the Hab. We understand from previous crews and the swollen roof in stateroom #4 that accidently forgetting to shut off the water pump can have dire results. And duct tape won’t be able to hold the roof forever. Our attempt to resolve this issue tried to stray away from modifying the current system, which includes anything electrical. Our prototype solution is a fully mechanical system made from spare parts found around the Hab.
In short, we attached a small PVC pipe with a floater inside the tank that is tied to a string, which is strapped to a weighted bolt. The bolt is loosely held to the cheese end of a small mouse trap and the spring loaded end of the trap is tied to string which is tied at the other end to the mechanical water pump switch. When the system is on, the water rises in the tank, the increased buoyancy raises the floater inside the pipe which drops the weight ever so slightly, which triggers the mouse trap, which immediately turns the water pump switch into the off position.
Note that everything portion of this system was disinfected with alcohol thoroughly to avoid contamination of our water supply. For more, please see the attach diagrams. We tested this system once and it worked, but we will continue to monitor this system. I’d say 10% of the time, it works 100% of the time.
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Diesel: 40%
Propane: 80%
Water: 33/40in
Water meter: 88920.2
Water usage/person: 28.72L
Morale: Everything is awesome!
Weariness: Weekends were made for fun… and resting
Tony: Tony had his first EVA today on a perfect
Sunday morning. “Hello people, how are you doing people!”