www.3ders.org

Nov 28, 2015 | By Andre

Mars rovers are one of my favourite things NASA plays with these days. Sure, there may be more important scientific endeavours going on beyond what roaming rovers can uncover. But really, remote controlled robots scouring the surface of mars is good in my book any day of the week.

I’ve been following the rover program since Pathfinder made its remarkable decent in 1997. Some time later Spirit and Opportunity arrived, both eventually outlasting their original mission objectives by years. Fast forward to today and we have the massive (relative to the others) Curiosity rover roaming around the surface of Mars doing its thing.

The problem is rovers are expensive. Curiosity cost $2.5 billion. That’s not exactly something the average person can just open their wallet to and buy. So sadly, any hope of having my very own rover checking stuff out by my side while I wander the streets is out of the question… Or is it?

Thanks to a project requirement of the MakeCourse at the University of South Florida, a rover can be had; and for cheap. This course, which is dedicated to teaching basic skills for engineering design projects during a 15 week span provides an introduction to CAD software, 3D printers, Arduino and coding in C++. Luckily for us, a Rover was created through this course and the instructions to reproduce one is available online for free.

Instructables user dgrermain1 shared his Makecourse project with the world and I really recommend checking it out.

He writes that “this project was an AWESOME learning experience and many of the processes were my first time doing such.” But that “that this project requires a lot of soldering and shrink wrapping of wires and connectors. Also, the modification process for the continuous rotation servos is very delicate and you can very easily ruin a servo if you are not absolutely careful.”
So while making your very own rover isn’t as easy as constructing a lego set, a creative Maker with some soldering skills, wire cutters and access to a 3D printer can make it happen.

Of course, there are many steps and a bit of knowhow required to finish the job. He writes that “you will also need to modify four servos to operate in continuous rotation” in heavy bold text with instructions on what he means.

I took a look at the STL files in Makerware and noticed the largest parts couldn’t fit on my machine’s print bed. Though, finding a large enough printer isn’t too difficult a task so it shouldn’t turn you off if interested in the project.

Beyond the 3D printed body, the control system begins with a 1300mAh lithium polymer battery (which he himself admits is a bit of overkill for what the project is). Beyond that, an Arduino UNO is used as the brain and an ultrasonic sensor, LED lights and a piezo buzzer all assist rover in detecting its surroundings and communicating to the controller how its doing.

I want one.

I really do.

 

 

Posted in 3D Printing Application

 

 

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