ArduSat Space Kit Preview

By Matt Rasband

Courtesy www.ardusat.com
Long before EDGE was formalized, most of our members were involved in advancing STEM education and interests. That path has brought us in contact with a significant number of fantastic people and organizations, one of which is ArduSat.  This company has an interesting history, starting off as a Kickstarter campaign, becoming Nanosatisfi (now Spire Global), and being spun off as a standalone education company. If you are not familiar with ArduSat’s mission, they are an education company with the goal of building a platform enabling easy and affordable access to space[1].  It’s a large goal, but with their parter, Spire, Inc., they have quickly enabled individuals to have that access.
We were treated to ArduSat’s first release of the Space Kit, a kit loaded with all the sensors that are on a Spire CubeSat.  The kit allows users to build experiments in their own classroom before they deploy them to their specified time slot on the CubeSat.  The target of the Space Kit is classrooms, but they do have individual kits as well.  There is more than enough in each kit to have a team on it, a safe bet is 1 kit will be good for a team of 3-5.
Beyond the kit and the contents themselves, you also gain access to their team and quite a few resources online, such as webinars.  We have had quite a few interactions with the team, and even though we haven’t seen the resources they have with the SpaceKit package, the people we have met are very passionate about STEM and the company’s mission.  There is no doubt for us that the resources they have there are fantastic.
 
The most up-to-date Space Kit listing is on their product page, however ours included the following:
 
Arduino Uno Ultra Violet Light Sensor (ML8511)
Solderless Breadboard Infrared Thermopile (MLX90614)
Luminosity Sensor (TSL2561) USB Cable (A -> B)
Temperature Sensor (TMP102) LEDs
Accelerometer/Magnetometer (LSM303DLHC) Jumper Wire
Gyroscope (L3GD20) Resistors
9v Barrel Connector  
 
All the these boards are sourced from the same places we would order from, SparkFun and Adafruit.
 
The offering is pretty interesting to us because it lets us hit quite a few of the major senses in a variety of dimensions.  If you are unfamiliar with the sensors, we’d encourage you to visit the product pages at both SparkFun and Adafruit.
 
We have been working on some small helper libraries for each sensor individually, however ArduSat recently released their open source [SDK](https://github.com/ArduSat/ArdusatSDK) to help teams get started.  We have been planning on bringing the kit up on a balloon soon, but with the current jet stream elongating our flights we have had smaller launches focused on small projects flying.  We will have this up by the end of the Spring and provide some sample experiment ideas.
 
We are excited about what ArduSat is doing in education and the long term impacts that they will have from people who start (or grow) using their platform.  If you are involved with teaching, we’d recommend that you take a look at what they have to offer your STEM based programs, your students will love the real world application.