Backers, I have a new update for you!

Thanks to your donations and desire to see the project succeed we all got to travel to Houston, Texas to test our zip-tie manipulation device in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL). There was so much to see on our trip as the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) was like Disney World in that it just wasn’t possible to see everything in a single trip. Nevertheless, the important part you’ve all been waiting for… how did we do? Well, I have some news. Our zip tie manipulation device couldn’t cut any zip ties as the process worked a lot differently underwater than we anticipated. (It happens, this is why we test on earth first! Plus, apparently the rec center pool wasn’t a good enough test for our part.) Despite that, we got to meet the NBL divers (the people who tested our device) and we got some good feedback from them regarding the aspects of the device they felt were particularly good. Overall, they liked the feel of the device in their hands (often this is an issue since they wear very large gloves in space that get in the way of manual dexterity), our 3D printed parts withstood the massive forces put on them by the divers (devices often break at this competition for that very reason), and they were particularly impressed with our method of retaining the zip ties as our team was the only one that had that design incorporated into our device. At the end of the experience, we gave a presentation to the group detailing what worked well and what didn’t work so well and presented it to the administration at NASA that were interested in our collective designs. NASA’s overall goal with this is to gather as many designs as possible to inform their own engineers and employees on what the best design for a zip tie cutter will be in the future. From what we saw, the future looks brighter in space due to both our team and the many others that were there.

For those of you who wished you could have been there, we have a surprise for you. Here is a set of two videos detailing what happened during our test:

Video #1: https://youtu.be/ZN7uUcMjytE

Video #2: https://youtu.be/Pri272TCGGs

You can hear and see the divers using our Duquesne device in the NBL pool and communicating directly with our students for its application. Once again thank you very much for your support. We couldn’t have made it to the NBL without you!

This year, we will be going back to NASA to address additional problems with our team in order to improve our designs based upon what we learned during this last year. Be on the lookout for our next fundraising spirit page because "Houston, we’re going back to fix the problem!"

Benjamin S. Goldschmidt, PhD

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Duquesne University

Backers, thank you again for donating to help send the DU Infinity and Beyond team to Houston so that we don't have a problem!

Our students have been busy pushing the 3D printers to their maximum capacity in order to finalize our nearly completed, space-ready, zip-tie manipulation device so that we can test it at the Johnson space center in Houston, Texas. We've made substantial progress with the device including incorporating several of NASA's design requests in order to improve the structural integrity of the device such as adding metal bars to the inside of the 3D printed handles in order to prevent any possible breakage during use. The tool has been tested underwater in Pittsburgh to ensure that it can cut zip-ties with ease and so far it has performed its job adequately during our tests.

We cannot do this without your help, and so we ask one last thing. If you have a moment, please share our Spirit page at www.spirit.duq.edu/nasa to everyone you know over the next few days so that we can finish out our crowdfunding program strong. We'll need every last bit of support if we want to get our device into the hands of our space faring counterparts.

Thank you again for your support and very soon, we'll have a part of Duquesne in Houston, and one day, with your support, we'll have a part of Duquesne in space.