GeorgeWatson Team Croft AM
The George Watson Team preparing their satellite for flight.
Croft Additive Manufacturing, a metal 3D printing company, is supporting the George Watson College in Edinburgh as their students bid to be crowned European champions in a European Space Agency competition.
The CanSat tournament pits teams of young people from ESA member states against each other and task them with creating small satellites the size of soft-drink cans.
Geroge Watson College's group, made up of six students, fought off competition from a number of UK teams in the national round, and is now heading to Germany in June. Here, they will face off against 15 rival teams from schools across Europe.
For the finals, qualifying teams must build a CanSat, with all the necessary instrumentation found in a real satellite, including sensors and communications systems, while following the strict size requirements. The devices will then be launched via rocket to an altitude of one kilometre, or dropped from a helium balloon. While in flight, the teams must carry out scientific experiments and ensure the device lands safely, before analysing and presenting data to the judges.
Croft Additive Manufacturing (CAM) were approached by the George Watson College team in an attempt to gain some advantage over their competitors. Using selective layer metal manufacturing (SLM) technology, a more efficient and robust metal casting was produced for the CanSat.
George Watson College - working
The George Watson team working from the college
“Supporting students and young people who are interesting in STEM career paths is an important part of what CAM is all about,” said Neil Burns, Director, Croft Additive Manufacturing. “Additive Manufacturing can help engineers and manufacturers produce unique designs, which would have been impossible to create using traditional methods. We’re glad that the George Watson team could take advantage of our SLM services, and we’re happy to sponsor them in their competition and wish them the best of luck in the European finals.”
A spokesperson from the George Watson CanSat team added: “The challenge in this project is maximising the space available to us. By using CAM’s SLM technology, we have ensured that all subsystems in our CanSat are arranged in the most efficient way possible.”
The finals of the CanSat competition are set to take place at the end of June 2017.
