Blender to TinkerCad Solar Powered Desert Lab Habitat

I am creating a desert biome that researchers can live in to study solar panel energy using blender. Water will be received from the rain and pipes that collect groundwater. Electricity will come from solar energy, with excess being stored for the night as well as wind energy to meet energy quotas at night. There will be a garden for recreation time, as well as a green house for plants and animals. Dorms and labs will branch from the green house, creating a web of buildings.

I am a sophomore who started blender this year, my teacher recommended this to me in June, and learning about how our solar energy is more than enough to power the world but it's just unable to be stored inspired me to build this desert lab.

The main design and usage of 3d software is on blender, but I exported an stl file into tinkerCAD and edited some botched details due to the transfer, to satisfy the AutoCad requirements.

➤Floors would be made from granite

➤solar screen

➤Adobe wall material for the outside

➤sprinklers

➤Steel pile pipes

➤Insulation in the middle.

➤PVC pipes

➤Soil

➤bevels and steel rods for the dome frame

➤Solar Panels and ball and socket joint axis mount.

➤Wood on the inside 

➤Vinyl Glass

➤one way mirrors, half of light reflects, half goes through

➤Wind turbines

➤trombe Walls

➤Marine Grade Polymer for rainwater collection

Planning out: I used existing desert biomes as inspiration and researched how to make those habitats livable. Most desert homes are open, heat resistant, and have lots of windows. Some ways to also make sure my habitat was suited for the heat of the summer, was to include natively used materials like adobe, and innovations like trombe walls to regulate temperatures in the greenhouse at night to save heating and ac costs. To make the dome shapes, I use inter connecting hexagons made of steel rods and bevels for the frame as I was inspired by honeycomb which is very strong. Therefore my sketches were based on the research I made.

The first step is to make the big dome first as all 6 domes will be relatively the same look.

First in blender I used the top part of an UV sphere to create the main green house dome. I extruded the sides to make fins for the dome, as well as a shelf on the roof. Those "shelves" are where solar panels will be put, which is why they are angled so when light bounces of the one way mirror at the very top of the roof, it will be absorbed by the panels.

The dome shape would be constructed with bevels and steel bars to make hexagon shapes that connect to make a dome.

The outside would be made of adobe, a fire resistant material that is relatively cheap and can be applied thickly to regulate heat. 

Finishing the main habitat area.

I made smaller domes by copying and pasting the first one and scaling it down. I copied and pasted the small domes and rotated them 72 degrees around the main dome until I had 5 around the greenhouse. The middle dome is for greenery and a self-sustaining ecosystem while the other branches are for research and dorms. Therefore, the middle is mostly Glass to let in sunlight for the plants. I used the glass BSDF to make the glass effect, gave it 0 roughness and changed it from the opaque setting.

The windows are vinyl glass, which is durable and insulating, perfect for this adverse biome.

Used a cylinder and flattened the bottom to use as hallways that bridge the gap between the smaller domes to the bigger dome. The color of the walls are beige which is a light color that reflects more light and helps make sure the domes stay cool.

I added a plane with sand textures to simulate the desert ground.

I then went in to open up the smaller domes by making the bottom layer all open using columns and not solid wall. This open area makes the area vulnerable to sand from sandstorms, therefore windows are able to come down, along with solar screens (in case of harsh sunlight) in order to protect from the environment.

The floors of the dorms are made of wood to simulate a cozy living space, and since the dorms are well insulated and temperature regulated, the wood will last in the climate.

Inside every dome is a hexagon column which helps support weight, but in the green house the column is hollow in the middle, where isolated plants or animals can be nurtured. The 2nd floor of the green house will be made from glass to let sunlight penetrate and is only to be used as a walkway between the other domes.

Just as a way to see the floor clearer, it is using a different material in the picture, but that material is not part of the final product.

The floors of the regular domes are made from granite, which is a great material for a hot climate as they are heat resistant, fashionable, and durable. However, the greenhouse will obviously, be mostly soil in order to simulate a place where animals and plants can thrive.

Hexagons are a vital shape to bees, and honeycomb is extremely durable, therefore the steel pipes I used were made in the shape of hexagon tubes. I snapped each hexagon's face to each other to really simulate a honeycomb. This gives the structure very stable ground to be built on. This is necessary as sand is not a stable building ground, so pipe piles are used in real life to give a strong foundation for big buildings.These pipes are hammered deep into the ground.

Pvc pipes will be put into the ground through some of these pipes (those specific ones will be hollow) in order to collect ground water as having only rainwater collection will not suffice due to the rare instances of rain in the desert.

Team Morale is important for efficient work, and for a plain and isolated research area like the desert, a reminder of home is vital.

For a pop of color and as a recreational area for researchers, there is a garden area where sprinklers are installed to water the grass and flowers. There would also be benches available there, and the sectioned hexagons are perfect for picnics or other group activities.

In order to discourage wildlife from messing with the garden and other facilities, there is a circumference of led lights that turn on at night using solar energy stored in the morning.

In the desert we can only rely on the little resources in the environment. Therefore to maximize resources being gathered, I employed solar and wind power to provide energy, and a rainwater collection system to collect fresh water (made of Marine Grade Polymer). Since the desert does not rain enough to survive off of, there is also a groundwater collection system.

The solar farm on the habitat have panels on a ball and socket axis so the panels can follow the direction of the sun. This lets us get the most energy out of the sun that we can.

Wind energy supplements the energy needed when the solar farm does not work at night.

I exported main habitat from the blender file as a stl and 3d printed it. Then I removed the excess print and marked where the main adobe walls are in red, where the solar panels are in white, and the mirrors in black.

The dimensions of the 3d print to real life is around  1: 3740 (7 inches to 95 meters)