As the name implies, here at Hackaday we strive to bring you interesting projects every single day. But that doesn’t necessarily mean a project only gets one day to grace these storied pages. Quite the opposite, in fact. We’re always happy to revisit a project and find out how far it’s evolved since we last crossed paths with it, especially when the creators themselves reach out to give us an update.
Which is exactly what happened when [Jakob Krantz] recently wrote in to get us up to speed on this incredible open source rover project. We first saw this 3D printed Curiosity inspired robot a little less than a year ago, and at that point it was essentially just a big box with the distinctive NASA rocker-bogie suspension bolted on. Now it not only looks a lot closer to the Martian rovers that inspired it, but it’s also learned a number of new tricks that really take this project to the next level.
The articulated head and grabber arm don’t just help sell the Curiosity look, they’re actually functional. [Jakob] notes that he doesn’t have kinematics integrated yet, so moving the arm around is more for show than practical application, but in the future it should be able to reach out and grab objects. With the new cameras in the head, he’ll even be able to get a first person view of what he’s picking up.
Last year [Jakob] was using a standard RC transmitter to drive the rover around, but he’s since put together a custom controller that’s truly a thing of beauty. It uses an ESP32 and LoRa module to communicate with matching hardware inside the rover, as well as a smartphone clipped onto the top that’s displaying telemetry and video over WiFi. The controller is actually its own separate project, so even if you aren’t in the market for a scaled down Mars rover, its controller could come in handy for your next robotics project.
Presumably the multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) on the back of the rover is just pretend….but with this guy, we’re not so sure. Give him another year, and who knows.
Does it use Java in any way?
Doesn’t look like it based on the git commits. The phone app probably does (assuming it’s android native…could be a web UI).
No Java, It’s just a pretty simple website running in the browser https://github.com/jakkra/Rover-Mission-Control
C++ 60.6%
JavaScript 19.2%
HTML 12.3%
C 7.9%
Is that by weight or by volume?
B^)
Hypothetically, just a really long string, but since it really comes down to rows and columns, or tracks and sectors, it’s area.
Huh.. I never noticed the the differential mechanism for the rocker-bogie suspension before. Adding a gif of this in action to the wikipedia entry on the topic would be appreciated.
Cool project. Definitely one of the more unique RC vehicles out there.
Well you nailed it, unique RC vehicle, not much rover functionality yet.
I can’t see any practical reason to making it autonomous other than as a programming challenge. Although sending it destination commands and letting it do its thing would be pretty cool.
For a realistic effect, all commands are followed by a pause for speed of light delay.
I guess you probably mean more along the lines of robot arm stuff..
Here is a gif from last summer showing the boogie http://imgur.com/XABRVnx
Thanks! The rocker’s differential motion is a lot more visually subtle than I would have expected.
I’d like to let a rover explore something and only give it commands (with delays) like it were on Mars, but unluckily Earth has caught homo sapiens and they are known to vandalise everything.
:-(
We’ll never forget HitchBOT!
Curious that he didn’t use the plans from NASA for Open Source Rover.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://github.com/nasa-jpl/open-source-rover&ved=2ahUKEwicsorAnLHqAhWHu54KHYdmCooQFjABegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw1SfkfFXoBsksZ3b84NWjto
Hi, mostly because I wanted to build it from scratch. That design is not 3D print friendly. It’s also quite expensive to build.
I wonder if it’s beefy enough to survive launch and re-entry, particularly with the goofy methods we prefer anymore
Goofy like rockets?