Mini Mars Rover

It’s shortened, cuz of rules so read the actual readme

What Is It?

It is a Mars rover, made to be small and basically a mini version of a rover. Why is it mini? This is because regular-sized rovers are about 10 feet long; this rover is about 3 feet. Big rovers cost lots of money, effort, and time because they are huge and cannot be mass-produced, not to mention the amount of effort required to make sure this 10-foot gargantuan lands properly.

What Does It Contain?

Rocker-Bogie System & Wheels

Let’s start with the structure that holds up the rover and helps it roll through the Martian environment. This structure is called a Rocker-Bogie system. It consists of 2 parts of the wheel framework that attach to each other and rotate. The two parts allow the whole vehicle to be stable, which is extremely important on Mars. This rotation allows the rover to go over several bumps or tiny high hills without crashing.

Next are the wheels: heavy-duty wheels scaled to fit the robot. They rotate and feature grooves for better grip, made with plastic and metal.

Cameras, Antennas & Power

If you turn my robot around, on the back it has cameras that allow the vehicle to see behind it. On top of the body, at the very top, there is a Pancam Mast Assembly (PMA)—a tall elevated mast used on my rover to hold panoramic and navigation cameras (similar to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers).

The top also contains a solar panel so these mini ’lil bots can harvest solar energy to work. I decided against using radioactive plutonium as a power/heat source because it would be expensive and difficult to use.

Next, it has a Low Gain Antenna that looks like a stick. It serves as a backup or failsafe to receive direct-from-Earth commands without needing to precisely point, unlike the High Gain Antenna (which looks like a broken pickleball paddle) that concentrates its signal in a focused beam.

Internal Mechanisms & Robotic Arms

Inside the front of the rover’s body, there is a pair of hinged doors that open and close to protect the interior.

Behind those doors are two rods and two mechanical arms:

• Claw Arm: Made of 3 parts (2 long metal strips connected together and a claw that can adjust its grip size).
• Drill Arm: Equipped with a drill bit used to break martian materials for sample storage.

Each arm stands on a rod, allowing them to change direction vertically and making the process of extracting materials very easy. Additionally, two solar panels attach to a cylindrical piston that expands and retracts to push the panels out or pull them inside safely at night.

Mars Ascent Vehicles (MAV)

Finally, stored at the back are 4 Mars Ascent Vehicles (MAV). The robot stores collected samples inside these rockets, allowing them to eject and safely travel back to Earth for further experimentation.

Have fun, and be sure to give me a nice rating so I can get some nice prizes!! :D

Devlog #7
OH GOLLY GEE! GUYS I AM VERY CLOSE TO FINISHING THIS PROJECT!!

For the past hour, I have been designing one of my last attributes to my mini mars rover, which is MAV!! AKA The Mars Ascent Vehicle used to store samples to ship them back to Earth! They are placed in the very bottom of my Rover, and will be ejected out of the rover when samples are collected successfully!!

What do you guys think of my project!!

DEVLOG #5

HI GUYS!!

For the last 4 hours I have been designing a High-Gain Antenna, like the one in Perseverance, it has a flat panel antenna that revolves and focuses power in a beam. It allows the rover to send info like pictures to Earth and receive commands and instructions.

I have also redesigned the claws, by adding a long stick so the claw can move up and down. I un-glitched the original claw that I was crashing out on, (The devlog thats after 2, but behind 3) and added limits so the claw wouldn’t turn on itself

I then made another instrument- a claw- but this time it had a drill bit, so the rover could interact with Martian material and drill through it.

I also fixed up the rover and made sure there were no errors.

THANKS FOR READING!!!

Devlog #4

HI GUYS!

For the last 4 hours, I was planning and designing an ACTUAL “Rocker-Bogie” system.

What is a “Rocker-Bogie” system?

“A specialized, spring-less suspension arrangement used on wheeled vehicles—most famously NASA’s Mars rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance. It uses clever geometry and pivoting arms to climb over large rocks and rough ground while keeping all wheels firmly on the surface,” (According to several sources).

Progress & Changes

In the past, I only had a simple framework, with no joints, just a few bars that would hold the wheels without any suspension, but now I have deleted my old design and turned it into a more complicated but better design.

I had to put parts together and find a way to keep it the same size with a different design.

Here’s how it turned out!

DEVLOG 3

Hi everyone! How are y’all doing?

I’m keeping this one short so our fried attention spans actually can read this!!

Progress Update (Past 5 Hours):

• Solar Panel Implementation: Added top solar panels and worked on retractable versions.
• Mechanism Iteration: * Initially tried a 4-arm bending mechanism to unfold the solar panels, but the arms wouldn’t fold or extend properly.
  • Switched to a piston-like cylinder mechanism that extends the panels smoothly instead.
• Playability: You guys can play around with this mechanism once I’m done!
• Antenna Work: Partially created a low-gain antenna.

THANKS FOR READING! FEEL FREE TO ASK QUESTIONS!!!
(this pic is the retractable part that didn’t) work

😭😭😭I am genuinely suffering in hell because of freaking onshape, my eyes are going to fall out of my head, that’s how frustrated I am. For those wondering why, I was designing a claw for the robot and all was going well until it started glitching and phasing thru each other, so I am now trying to fix that. On top of that my time isn’t logged so I may have just spent 3 hours just for it to not get logged. AHHHHGGHHHH!!! 😭😭😭 genuinely what is this BTW:this is devlog #3

DEVLOG: 02

HI GUYS!! How are y’all doing?

For those who don’t know, I am creating a mini Mars rover - ALL FROM SCRATCH (AHHHGHH) - on Onshape (a cad software), while I am importing a few parts like the cameras and wheels, everything else is made by myself. My Mars rover is based off of a rover called “Perseverance”, which is a famous Mars rover. Previously, I did lots of research on the wheels and what type of build it should be to be successful on Mars.

Anyway ~ Right now, I have added the wheels and the wheel framework to attach these beautiful bluish saucers onto this beautiful structure!!

“YAy, iT finAlLy looKS liKe an actual roBoT ANd NoT A WEIRd MICroWAVe!!”

Yes, I know, I know guys, thanks for your compliments😏😏!!

I ran into a couple of problems on Onshape: my first being that the Assembly tab wouldn’t update even when I changed my parts in my part studio. Basically, this meant that I had to undo all of the mates and redo the build and redo the mates again!! I tried to troubleshoot and watched a ton of videos to try and change the settings or use weird tools but nothing worked, so I basically wasted hours just trying to find a solution. SIGH

(For those who don’t use CAD, a mate is something that connects your parts together, you make things in the Part Studio, and you build and assemble in the Assembly studio!)

I also had to redesign my parts in the part studio because the mates wouldn’t stick on the weird cylindrical surface, and I couldn’t add a mate connector because… well I still don’t know, but what’s a little mystery to spice up life? Eh?! Soon, I stumbled upon a mysterious tool that allowed me to swap out my parts in the Assembly studio, called “Replace Instance” which basically replaced any part in my Assembly studio, which basically saved me a ton of time!!

So far, I have also added WORKING HINGE DOORS YAY! As well as a few different parts to ensure all of my parts stuck to each other!

Anyway, that’s it, and here are some pics!!!😆😆😆

Mars Rover

I decided to try and recreate Perseverance (a type of Mars rover ), except my rover would be more small and cost efficient meaning I would try and use the least amount of material so in theory more of my small rovers could be mass produced.

I carefully researched Perseverance and kept the parts that were absolutely needed for a Rover, and discarded the ones that wouldn’t be needed as much.

As of now, I need a camera for surveillance and observations, while I need to keep some in the front and back so my Rover knows where to avoid and go.

My rover also needs solar panels for energy, and arms to interact with Mars’s environment.

So far I have made the cameras, the main body, figured out the proportions and sizes, and framework.

I think this project may take 10+ hours, but stay tuned to find out!! :D