Spiral Mars Base

This is my entry to the MakerBot Mars Base Challenge.





This is the Spiral Mars Base. It has a unique spiral shape for several different reasons. Ideally when utilizing a 3D printer to print a structure the printer would be big enough to print the whole structure in one print. Printing this way limits significantly the amount of assembly that would be required by the explorers, and even opens the possibility of having the base fully assembled when the explorers arrive. This idea is impractical; unfortunately the printer would be for too large for its own good. The middle ground, a solution to this problem, would be to have a large printer on wheels. A large printer capable of printing a 20 ft square base at a height of 12 ft would be used for this print. The printer would print a section of the Spiral Mars Base and then move on slightly and continue printing, slightly on top of the last piece, in order to form a solid continuous structure. The printer would have to be