Over the weekend I had the pleasure to participate in yet another hackathon. This time it was for NASA Space Apps in the town-like city of Ottawa. What really drew me to this hackathon was the inclusion of their first ever hardware challenge. Being a masochist (i.e. passionate about embedded development) I had to jump in and register with a few friends of mine. I don’t like to talk pointlessly so let’s get right into the challenge,
The Challenge
With the Artemis Astronauts destined for the moon, there will soon be a need for infrastructure to keep them safe and operations running. A key part of that infrastructure is power - and what better way to get that power than from the sun. The problem is that depending on where you land, the sun will move very fast across the sky, severely reducing its efficiency.
That’s where you come in! Your challenge is to design (and optionally build) a system that can track the sun as it travels across the sky, maximizing the energy available for the Artemis crew.
NOTE: This challenge has an optional hardware component, in which you either build your own sun tracker, or write controls for a pre-built solar array.