Clear Creek High School Engineering

Clear Creek High School

Clear Creek ISD

2305 East Main

League City Texas 77573

281-284-1700

Quick Disconnect Valve Project by Clear Creek High School

Over the past 7 years Mr. Robert Zeek of Marshal Astronaut Training Center in Huntsville Alabama has been assigning High Schools United with Nasa to Create Hardware (HUNCH) a project called Quick Disconnect Valves. A number of colleges and high schools in the Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana area were given this assignment without success. The objective was to revamp designs for further manufacturing and make astronaut training 3-D models. The status of the assigned projects was unsuccessful until they were given to Clear Creek High School Mr. Robin Merritt’s Architectural/Civil Engineering Classes in League City Texas, January 2018.

The Quick Disconnect Valve System is a valve attachment which allows various fluids such as drinking water, water as a coolant and experimental fluids to travel throughout the International Space Station. Some valves are tasked to connect gasses such as oxygen or carbon dioxide throughout the station. The valves have a key finger alignment system to keep astronauts from attaching the valve to the wrong connect/disconnect which could cause damage to the spacecraft or harm the astronauts. The valve system is also slated to be used on future space flights such as the moon and beyond.

The NASA HUNCH Quick Disconnect Valve Project gave our Engineering Students a “Real World Level Challenge”, said Mr. Robin Merritt Engineering Instructor at Clear Creek High School. The difficulty of this project on a scale of 1-10 was about an eleven states Merritt but what could look better on a resume of a graduating high school senior than; Designing, Modeling and Manufacturing Plans for Quick Release Valves for NASA’s International Space Station.

The Quick Disconnect Valve Project was given to Clear Creek High School mid-January of 2018 and the project completion date April 28, 2018. The total project was completed in four months.