The Spirit of a Leader
Space Shuttle Solid WorkdsModel
The aim of the project was to select a challenging source of inspiration and make a solid works model out of it. My project is a design of one of the most complicated pieces of engineering people have come up with - the space shuttle. This space shuttle includes the all the major parts, including the rocket boosters, the external tank and the body of the orbiter.
The space shuttle is one of the hardest things that humans have engineered and it represents the best qualities of people: intellectual curiosity and a need to push the boundaries. I am studying Civil Engineering but I am fascinated with engineering marvels across all spectrum of Sciences. When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut, like many other children I was amazed by how boundless our capabilities are and the space shuttle is a physical manifestation of that. I also really like the aesthetic look of the space shuttle so this was the first thing that came up to my mind for the project.
The features that I used the most were extrude and lofting because of the cylindrical design of the rockets and the curvatures of the orbiter's body. Besides these, I used most other features, such as mirroring, extruded cut, shell, fillets and reference geometries. The hardest part of the design was definitely the head of the orbiter which took me the longest amount of time. I had to learn new ways of drawing in Solidworks to complete that part. The head is curved in such a way that simple lofting would not suffice, so several planes containing progressively smaller arches had to be made within small distances to get the curve right. Sometimes the arches were too small and sometimes they were too big and it was hard to tell until the entire loft was completed, so it had to be redone several times. The curve at the top of the head and the bottom of the head were different so the same method could not be used for the bottom part. For the bottom portion I had to draw a 3D sketch, one that would cross through planes, and then I mirrored the 3D line to the other side of the body and then I lofted them both.
I have high respect for people who complete amazing feats, especially the ones that people said that could not be done. The space shuttle is the height of engineering complexity that it amazes me that people have conceived and built such a thing. I wondered how the engineers would have felt after successfully completing such a hard task, and this inspired to try designing something hard so I would be proud of what I made after.
The most important thing I learned from the project is that every complicated object is just lots of simple parts put together. This new understanding helped me in design, as it helped me find the simplest way to do something. The body of the orbiter may look hard to make with all its intimidating curvatures but all that had to be done for the body was to extrude a rectangle and a semicircle to achieve the same curvature. I also learned that I have the capability to make a complicated object, which gave me confidence in my abilities and will encourage me to do harder projects in the future. In terms of features, I learned about 3D sketch which allows you to draw without any bound and shift from plane to plane much more easily. It is a helpful tool, however, when drawing in 3D it is incredibly difficult to get the line in the plane that you want it to be in so a long time had to be spent on that as well.
Rendered Space Shuttle Corner angle view
Rendered Space Shuttle front view
Rendered Space Shuttle Top view
