Preston designed a clinostat that seems to be better than Davy's clinostat.
Preston designed a clinostat, which was a piece of hardware for synthetic biology in space. The design was inspired by robotics as applied in the First Robotics Competition (FRC). An FRC swerve drive might have been ideal, but was not available. Rev brand SparkMax units and Neo550 motors were available, so Preston 3-D printed most components and used off-the-shelf bearings and metal plates. The entire assembly demonstrated correct mechanical motion, but software bugs with the SparkMax units prevented correct motorization.
Overview of Clinostats
In space, normal instincts can't tell you which way is "up"; a clinostat simulates this topsy-turvy feeling by rotating samples around two axes.
Preston's design has the advantage of being small, robust, and efficient. Excessively large units would become unstable at high speeds. Because Preston's parts were 3-D printed, they would likely be unsafe if operated faster than 5000 revolutions per minute. However, Preston's designs are likely more reliable than the clinostat design that Davy could have provided.
Parts List
The clinostat is built from a mix of off-the-shelf and custom-cut components. The full assembly and each major part are shown below.
Full CAD assembly
| Photo | Part |
|---|---|
 | Motor used (Neo 550 from REV) × 2 |
 | 1/4″ aluminum waterjetted plate |
 | 3/8″ thunderhex bearing × 7 |
 | Perpendicular motion gears |
 | Custom gears |
 | Vertical extension mounts |
 | Placeholder for container |
 | Main 4″ bearing for main rotation |
Note: this parts list was reconstructed from a spreadsheet where each photo was positioned independently of the row labels next to it. Most pairings were straightforward, but the aluminum plate, perpendicular motion gears, and custom gears photos required visual judgment to match to the correct label — worth double-checking these three against the original spreadsheet.