A Trabant, which rose high up in the air
SKN SpaceCoffee is a unique Science Club of the Silesian University of Technology, founded by secondary school pupils. Their biggest project to date is the airship, which during the official first attempt soared into the air.
Space Coffee Student Science Club was created by friends and young science enthusiasts. It was founded 1.5 years ago on the basis of a secondary school club.
- The history of the Science Club began with the mentoring program “Spread the wings” under which Michał Lasak, the president of the Club, was assigned to my care. This program was initially implemented for students, but later the idea was created to activate ambitious secondary school pupils even before they went to university – explains Dr Eng. Tomasz Grzejszczak, tutor of the Club from the Department of Automation and Robotics at the Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science of the Silesian University of Technology. - The cooperation with Michał developed so well that over time there was a proposal to initiate the creation of a Science Club, which at the beginning was mainly formed by colleagues from his class.
On July 17, SKN Space Coffee organized the Flying Machines Day. Its culminating point was the presentation of the airship they constructed.
- We are committed to creating autonomous vehicles – from rovers to the airship we have been working on since the start of our operations. It was an important event for us – it was the first show and in fact the first test of the airship – says Michał Lasak, CEO of SKN SpaceCoffee.
The frame structure of the airship is 3.5m long and 1.25m in diameter. It is designed to transport small objects. So far, a group of enthusiasts call him playfully “a Trabant.”
- The first plan was to build it entirely from carbon fibre. Ultimately, we created it from wood, with the support of the aforementioned fibre and 3D printing, as well as resin, which strengthens its construction – explains Michał.
- We wanted to create something based on a drone, but with a little bit of surprise. Of course, our construction is big in size, but thanks to the materials used, it is light and durable at the same time. We decided to use balloons, which filled with hydrogen are used to provide carrying capacity – says Franciszek Borgosz, the project’s chief engineer.
- I am glad that, among others, thanks to my studies at the Academic Secondary Comprehensive School of the Silesian University of Technology, I had the opportunity to develop passions related to, for example, robotics. Also, in the case of the airship, I could deal with the electronic-mechatronic part. I really like to “connect cables” and check later if it works well,- says Kamil Moszumański, coordinator of events in the science club, also responsible for the second project SpaceCoffee – a Mars rover. -This passion brought us together. The desire to explore causes that in my free time, I like to do these things. What drives us is that we can grow and do things that we couldn’t do a few years ago.
The most difficult challenge for young people before the official test was that they had no chance to check the airship in the air.
- We could say that we had a lot of dry tests of separate subsystems, including the drive train, communication. We want to continue to draw conclusions and make appropriate amendments – says Franciszek.
SpaceCoffee members admitted that they were accompanied by stress, fear, and excitement about the first attempt. And although in the end the test was not 100% successful, because there was no airship flight, for young enthusiasts the most important information was that for a moment it rose into the air. This is a great motivation for them to continue working and improve the construction.
- The airship broke away from the launch platform, this is the most important thing for us. Now we have a lesson to learn. Mistakes are not made by those who do not try. I think that if we fix the damage, we will certainly do another test, which we will of course invite you to. Our project is still going on, says Franciszek.
- The pupils are very ambitious. Of course I offer them my help, but they like to be independent. And yet they had to face the calculations of weight, construction, strength. I only exercise substantive supervision over the implementation of obtaining funds, writing reports – says Dr Eng. Tomasz Grzejszczak. - They can surprise with their knowledge. Sometimes I forget that they are not students yet.
