NASA MarsPort Competition
During the Olin Partner year, I led a group of students to enter the NASA Marsport Competition. We embarked on a challenge to design a Mars Deployable Greenhouse that could fit into NASA's existing reference mission. To our surprise, our entry was selected as one of six finalists over entries from upperclass and graduate teams from other institutions. Our team pursued a relentlessly user-oriented approach, taking the provided system requirements and building on and prioritizing them through interviews with NASA astronauts and scientists.
In addition to conceptual design of the greenhouse, we also conducted a public outreach campaign that resulted in publicity in newspapers from Boston to Honolulu, partnership with a local high school, and presentations in forums ranging from the New England flower show to assisted living communities.
Team: More than 20 students, faculty, staff, and industry advisors
Resources: final design report (2.8MB
), final presentation (23MB 
), one page flyer (0.7KB ), website
