LEGO MINDSTORMS Mars Curiosity Rover

[DLuders]

Willgorman posted this

of a large LEGO MINDSTORMS Mars Curiosity Rover:

He wrote, "Doug Moran and I built a LEGO MINDSTORMS model of the Mars Curiosity Rover for the Build the Future in Space event at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The rover contains 1000's of LEGO Technic and MINDSTORMS bricks, and is 100% pure LEGO with no glue. Four of the six wheels are powered, and the rover can make 360 degree turns. The arm and mast are controlled via a separate NXT via bluetooth, and the rover is driven via a separate NXT Joystick designed by "Philo" [Philippe] Hurbain.

Special thanks to LEGO for providing all the plastic, and NASA for hosting a great event where we got to display the rover and build with the many families visiting the Kennedy Space Center!

Check out BattleBricks.com for more information about the rover and other LEGO MINDSTORMS projects. You can learn more about the LEGO and NASA partnership at LEGOspace.com."

"The Rover Drive Control is a direct decendant of Philo's NXT Joystick. Thanks Philo!"

@ Philo: Can you tell us more about your collaboration? I see you have PDF Building Instructions for your NXT Joystick:

Edited August 12, 2012 by DLuders

[skppo]

Now all it needs is a functional rocket powered mindstorms sky crane and a huge delay in the control link.

That thing was the best part about the real thing. It was just insane how the landing worked.

Big mindstorm projects like these are cool but things that are mostly automatic impress me more than just rc.

[88high]

I was about to start a topic about the mars mission and the several MOCs with it< but as ususal, Dluders beat me to it once again. UGH!

[DLuders]

For those who may want to build a smaller version of the Mars Curiosity Rover, consider the PDF Building Instructions of Stephen Pakbaz's MOC on Technicmad's Rebrickable.com :

"This is a model of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, named Curiosity. It is currently on Mars with a mission to investigate the past and current habitability of the Red Planet. On August 5, 2012, it touched down at Gale Crater, near the equator. This model has a fully articulated arm, deployable mast, and a working rocker-bogie suspension system that allows the rover to climb over large rocks and keep all six of its wheels on the ground.

"Please support this model on LEGO CUUSOO if you would like to see it become an official LEGO set!" See the 25 pictures on Apojove's Flickr photoset.

[DLuders]

Perijove's Lego Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover was offered "Congratulations to the LEGO® CUUSOO Fall Review Qualifiers" by The Lego Group. "As of midnight today, September 3 (GMT), the deadline to qualify for the Fall review has passed. The LEGO CUUSOO team extends our warm congratulations to the following projects that have successfully achieved 10,000 supporters and will be included in the Fall Review!

•Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover - by Perijove

•UCS Sandcrawler - by mb_bricks

•Thinking with Portals - by Team Jigsaw"

[DLuders]

RoboLegoMindstormsPL posted this

of his motorized Lego Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover. It features a simple wheel-pivoting mechanism:

[Burf2000]

I like the idea of using tank tracks as wheels

Edited October 2, 2012 by Burf2000

[Salvo]

I love how sturdy the whole structure looks, is the rocker-bogie suspension fully functional? If it is, how did you build the differential linking system that controls the pitch of the chassis?

Also, why didn't you power all 6 wheels? the middle two are the easiest to stick a motor into, is it just because of a lack of available motor ports?