A-MAN, Inc. / Project SUM Goes To Mars

As one of the science and technology activities undertaken by the students of the Project (Science Unveils Mystery) SUM program, the students with the help and guidance of the Planetary Society, in Pasadena, California, participated in the Planetary Society's "Red Rover, Red Rover" project. The overall strategy of the project was to afford the participants the experience of simulating the operation of the NASA Mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit.

The "Mars Rover" was made using the LEGO Dacta RCX (programmable LEGO brick) with special software, written to provide commands to the LEGO brick via an IR Transmitter. The programming language is not very dissimilar to that of C, and/or Java.

Later into the program, students will begin to write code using the NQC ("not-quite-C") programming language to write functions and procedures used to read information from the various LEGO sensors that are a part of the LEGO Dacta RCX kit. For the students, it was a process of learning how an "Engineering Plan" assists scientists and engineers, in determining the many complex decisions made in the process of building a rover, and anticipating what the terrain of another planet may require in order for the vehicle to control and maneuver the vehicle successfully, using remove controls.

The steps involved picking a location from among the various craters found on Mars, e.g., Gusev Crater and Terra Meridiani, to name a few. The students selected to similate the Terra Meridiani crater for their diorama. A brief summary of the process was to:

  1.   Select Groups and Assign Jobs
    • Apollo team was responsible for designing the diorama, and
    • Gemini was responsible for designing and building the rover
  2.   Build the rover
  3.   Operate and Calibrate Rover
  4.   Complete written report (Done simultaneously with Steps 2 and 3)
  5.   Build Terrain (Done simultaneously with the building of the Rover and the   writing of the Report)
  6.   Oral reports and demonstration
  7.   Self evaluation and evaluation of the other groups
Following the above outline, the students began the process of executing their plan, as depicted in the photo collection below.

Gemini team members discuss issues related to designing the diorama Students observe lecture presentation by Guest speaker
Gemini construction process. This terrain didn't make the cut! Yet another version of the Mars terrain
Students begin the process of creating a banner for the new diorama. This is the resultant diorama

The process of executing the engineering plan continued until, a more suitable representation was agreed upon by a concensus of the team members.

Meanwhile, the Apollo team begins early steps in the construction of the Mars Rover. Again, the process was to create the plan, execute the plan, and evaluate the results of the plan. The pictorial below picks up on some of these dynamic engineering processes.

The Apollo team leader, at right, and the first Engineer begin the process of selecting the components necessary for the rover. The first engineer examines the wheels based on clearance required in an unknown environment.
After careful consideration, and assembly, team members have the chassis assembled, and ready for a review meeting.

After a couple of other rover design meetings, the initial rover was modified to include a few additional design and functional elements, as seen below.

Continued on next page
Return to home page