Make It Resilient! | Surviving the Sahara Desert With an Extraordinary Base

Hello everyone, my name is Shabib and I am a rising sophomore at my high school! I have used Autodesk Fusion 360 for about my freshman year with a decent amount of experience to make something “resilient” for a certain survival situation I've chosen for this competition. 

So what on earth is the survival situation itself? Well, that is going to be the heated Sahara desert. The Sahara desert is one of the hottest environments in the entire world, leading people who live there to hardship. Some of these hardships include.

• Extremely Heated Temperatures
• Dehydration; great amounts of water are needed for survival
• Limited Amounts of Food
• Electricity; Solar panels themselves may even be damaged due to heated weather
• Weather; Lacks rainfall

My goal for surviving in this environment is to design a base to help people thrive in these weather conditions. This project will show a simple & interesting design that I have created. Furthermore, I believe this survival base will be well suited for the struggles in the Sahara Desert!

A good amount of thoughtful supplies is needed to create this resilient survival base. Here are all of the materials that would be used during the creation process...

• Concrete; Sand is a major component when it comes to the making of concrete. The Sahara desert has almost infinite amounts of sand.
• Heat Resistant Solar Panels; Especially when the heated sun rises upon the desert.
• Glass
• Glass Panels
• Iron; Greatly strong and perfect for water storage.
• Wooden Pipes; Not trying to go beyond expenses.
• A Windmill; It will go on top of the base as my 2nd electrical component.
• Oil; Can be found in the Sahara Desert.
• Steel; Used for the aviary to store edible birds.
• Sprinklers; The Greenhouse is also connected to the Water Tank for sprinklers
• Wood Itself; Wooden Roofs and Wooden Walls
• Filtering Machine; This will be built within the water tanks in order to gain clean and drinkable water.

First of all, I decided to start by sketching out designs for my extraordinary base! I was thinking about many advanced inventions that could be applied to my survival home. Of course, along the way, I was thinking about materials that would be relatively strong for this kind of desert environment. Along with the sketches, I've annotated along the way to spread my thinking around my Engineering Notebook.

The environment of the Sahara Desert does indeed in fact have a lot of wind active, swooshing around the sandy place. With this in mind, a windmill is perfect to produce electricity for the household in my survival base. The sun shines across the Sahara Desert, leaving us the perfect opportunity to apply specifically "heat-resistant" solar panels.

In addition to my heat-resistant solar panels, the survival base will need a water storage system which I have also sketched onto my Engineering Notebook. Finally, the greenhouse and the aviary will be my two main food storage systems for this extraordinary survival base!

I started my project by creating the greenhouse. Gardens are extremely important when it comes to surviving the Sahara Desert. That is why I have decided to start my whole project with the greenhouse itself. I first started by creating the base and a little balcony for my desires. I didn't want to go too crazy with the design. Once the platform was created, I started adding the wooden walls and a glass roof on top with areas of space. This will make sure that the plants are in contact with the sun. Furthermore, the water tanks (which will be further mentioned in the next step) are attached to the greenhouse and will be perfect for my sprinklers. Overall, this would be the process that I've used to create the greenhouse for my extraordinary survival base.

Following the greenhouse, I've decided to make a water storage system. The Sahara deserts hold one of the largest water supplies on the entire planet, especially underground. With this, the water storage systems gain water underground and are later connected to the greenhouse for the sprinklers to go into action. Furthermore, the water storage systems can be used for actual drinkable water once filtered and so on. The filtering process is achieved through the built-in Filtering Machine inside of the two other water tanks. The 3 tanks each have different purposes, one for the garden, and the other for drinking, lasting for quite a while for survival. 2 tanks are mostly for water as you must survive. Water is one of the main factors for humanity's survival. 

The house itself is indeed one of the main elements of this whole extraordinary survival base! The house in the first place would be made of concrete. The desert has infinite amounts of sand around its horizon. This leaves many advantageous attributes, the most important being the major element of concrete, especially as concrete can use sand for its creation, and we will be able to gain a ton of concrete as sand is all around us.

Not only concrete, but sand is also one of the main components of creating glass panels. Glass is sand that has been melted down, another advantage of the environment that we are trying to survive in. The Sahara Desert has a lot of strong winds! The air along the surface of the Sahara Desert is heated and boosted to create strong winds. This gives us the perfect reason to add a windmill to create a source of electricity.

Speaking of electricity, another source that is going to be included on the house roof itself is the heat-resistant solar panels. They must be heat-resistant as the scorching hot environment may impact the regular solar panels. The roof is going to be wooden, along with the door, and platform that have been created. The Sahara Desert has a good amount of trees in this scenario. Therefore, wooden structures are reliable in this situation of survival.

After many thoughtful processes, I've decided to end all of the main structures with an interesting aviary. This aviary will be mainly used for storing edible birds and other creatures for food. Food storage is one of the major components of surviving the heated Sahara Desert. Therefore, not only do I have a greenhouse for vegetables and greens, but I will also have another food storage system which is going to be the aviary.

There are quite a lot of edible birds that fly around the Sahara Desert. Some of them include Bustards, Sandgrouse, and the Hoopoe lark. Furthermore, ostriches live in the Sahara Deserts along with their gigantic eggs. These birds will be perfect to keep inside of this significant aviary. Other edible animals may also be added in, as there is a barrier that surrounds the aviary.

My whole extraordinary base was completed with the car. Cars are significant traveling vehicles to go through places, like the Sahara Desert at fast speeds. These cars are fueled with oil, which can be found across the heated Sahara Deserts. With this vehicle, we will be advantageous when hunting for prey or finding more resources along the way.

The two tanks on the back are filled with oil so that the car is ready for adventurous rides around the Sahara Desert. Furthermore, the car will be perfect for gaining edible birds and other creatures for my aviary/food storage area. After all, survivors need to have a trace of transportation to be in contact with the heated environment surrounding them. 

Overall, my extraordinary survival base was completed from scratch. I started the whole design process by brainstorming ideas and sketching on a rough sheet of paper. Along the way, I have learned that it is indeed possible to embrace unique surroundings to enhance the well-being of humanity. This is done by thinking through the amount of things that are advantageous in environments like the Sahara Desert. The Sahara Desert may be one of the most dangerous habitats, but if you use your creativity to build unique elements surrounding you, then you thrive in these types of scenarios.  

I used to not know that there were things that like the heat-resistant solar panels, that are greatly advantageous in places like the Sahara Desert. This is an element that can be used to enhance the surrounding area of humanity. This is great, especially during current times for my community when the heat is rising to extreme levels! Using heat-resistant solar panels will make sure that the heat won't damage them. Along with this significant point, I have learned many others while doing this project. Research was the main priority while creating a base for a realistic survival situation. Brainstorming and Sketching out ideas in the first place to enhance human society/communities is also a huge component for advancements. 

This concludes my extraordinary survival base in the Sahara Desert, and I thank Autodesk for giving me the chance to compete in this Student Design Contest.