Hello DesignSpark community! My name is Beth, and I’m a space engineering PhD researcher at the University of Strathclyde, Beaver Scout leader, and STEM Ambassador based in Glasgow. My project aims to build a fleet of educational, 3D-printed CubeSats to demystify space engineering for young people. Satellite technology often feels abstract (and distant!), so I am developing an open-source, modular hardware kit using 3D-printed components, and Raspberry Pi computers and sensors to provide a creative, tactile approach to space education.
Because 3D printing is highly economical, this project lowers financial barriers and enables young people from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds to engage with space hardware. By designing for entry-level 3D printers, these kits can easily be replicated at home by families, or by teachers and STEM volunteers in local libraries and maker spaces.
To make the learning experience truly interactive, the workshop activities I’ll run with these CubeSats are designed to mirror real satellite operations. Young people will get to explore how a sun sensor works, use GPS HATs to physically locate the CubeSats, and even have a go at writing their own Python scripts to take images. It is all about giving them direct, hands-on control over the hardware.
3D printed CubeSat parts before assembly, with Raspberry Pi components
The Inspiration
The initial inspiration for this project came to me during a satellite software workshop I ran for the Institute of Physics with female secondary school pupils. I brought an empty CubeSat body to the session, but it quickly became clear that a fully working demonstration model would be a far more engaging teaching tool. The students had a lot of questions about the inner workings of satellites, and wanted to see and hold the model to understand it better. Later, while volunteering at the Glasgow Science Festival, I looked around and saw the fantastic research on display to young people, and I realised I wanted a hands-on way to translate my software-based PhD research into something that could genuinely excite the public about space.
To prove this concept, I invested my own resources to build a prototype 1U CubeSat using a 1GB Raspberry Pi and a Pi Camera, and an open-source 1U CubeSat design I found online to 3D print. Despite its hardware limitations, this initial prototype successfully took photos and communicated with a browser-based server to display them. This served as a fantastic, tangible analogy for how real satellites transmit images back to Earth!
The prototype 1U CubeSat.
My ethos is deeply rooted in open-source sharing, so the entire hardware design, assembly documentation, and code will be hosted freely on my blog (www.shecodesthecosmos.co.uk). I am using OpenSCAD for the design and will maintain live, evolving instructions so student engineers and educators nationwide can download and modify the resources to suit their needs.
3D Printing a CubeSat on two different 3D printers
Challenges and Solutions
When building my initial prototype, I relied on existing online 3D designs for CubeSats, which unfortunately turned out to be poorly documented, overly complicated and sometimes structurally incorrect. Many 3D-printed CubeSat models are designed and used for academic research, which is fantastic but often means that the CubeSats are higher fidelity than what is needed for outreach and education, and often involve more complex build steps such as soldering electronics, which is not an option for smaller children or many families at home. Thankfully, I was able to draw heavily on my background contributing to open-source hardware, such as my time as a core team member of the OpenFlexure Microscope project. This prior experience navigating open-source limitations allowed me to troubleshoot the mechanical tolerances and successfully assemble the prototype.
Another major hurdle was the hardware itself; the 1GB Raspberry Pi in my self-funded prototype severely limited the software I could install, creating a massive performance bottleneck for any advanced sensing. Currently, I am facing a minor setback in finishing the new fleet builds as I eagerly await the arrival of a few final components, but this brief pause has been a wonderful opportunity to focus on refining my project documentation. I am incredibly grateful for the RS Student Fund, as the upgraded hardware will completely resolve those earlier performance bottlenecks just as soon as the final pieces land!
Conclusion
The grant from the RS Student Fund will allow me to scale from a single prototype to a robust fleet of four educational CubeSats, drastically increasing my outreach capacity. A complete CubeSat kit costs £230 using RS products, and the funding covers all electronic components, PLA filament, tools, and fasteners for the initial build. Crucially, it allowed me to upgrade to 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 B models, completely solving my previous memory limitations, and incorporate GPS modules for more advanced and interesting capabilities.
Delivering this project strengthens my hardware engineering skills and allows me to support the open-source ecosystem in entirely new ways. I highly encourage fellow student engineers to explore 3D printing and open-source design for their own projects; it is a fantastic way to build sustainable resources and inspire the next generation.
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