 Lunar Hot Tent
   
Project Duration: 6 weeks
Collaborator: Frank Mauro Tools: Sewing, Pattern making, Woodworking, Prototyping

Professors Newman and Wynn lead the Planetary Hospitality Project at CMU, researching the nature of human hospitality through the lens of space travel. 

As part of this, my classmate Frank and I set out to design an emergency lunar tent, and then constructed a terrestrial version inspired by hot tents.`    


❷ Design
The structure to is collapsable and deployable even with limited dexterity. The scissor mechanism is expanded with two people, and pushed inwards to form the arc


Much of our early ideation was done through talking and sketching around a table. These colaborative sketches were a key step in communication and descision making.



❸ Prototyping 
We started with small models and worked up to 1/4 scale before final construction. 

I led the design and fabrication of the fabric component and Frank led the wooden frame, but all processes were highly collaborative.
These were a lot of fun to have around, pretty dangerous toy though. 


Getting bigger...

The quarter scale model helped us decide where to add tension and play with the pattern. We tried to optimize the design to have as few ropes and connection points as possible. 



❹ Construction

The fabrication of the wood slats was pretty quick with a jig. The Majority of our time was spent quilting 30 yards of fabric into 10.  

Other than the fabric, the tent was constructed entirely out of found materials. The wood is IKEA bed frame slats, which is ideal because of their flexible design. Our stove was the luckiest find. Scaling up wasn’t as smooth a transition as we’d hoped, but it was a lot of fun to work on something so big. 


❺ Deployment
While some elements would have to be refined for space travel, we were able to pitch the tent with minimal trouble while wearing welding gloves.

We were quite happy with its collapsed form.


❻ Culmination!
The first and last firing took place in our backyard, it was hotter than we could have expected!

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