Lunar PICO rover

Full scale test of the rover test bed using simulated moon regolith and rocks. The rover did very well at powering though at 40% motor speed. Was a big hit at the local robotics club. More to do on the hardware of the rover still. Though initial test went good. 

Also designed and 3D printed a lunar regolith recovery scoop, worked pretty well for packing it back up.  :) 

A newer wheel was designed that fuses 3D printing and 3mm aluminum sheet spokes. After getting the lunar regolith, I see that I need as much traction as possible as it is a very fine powder that is very abrasive. I also made the motor arms a bit easier to print on a FDM style printer, as to bring the cost and complexity to build down a bit. It weighs a bit more, but it is able to got both forward and back unlike the previous version.

I went ahead and bit the bullet and purchase some (LHS-1E) Engineering Grade Lunar Highlands Simulant from Space Resource Technologies. Link below. I ordered about 53kg and about 6 rocks. I'm part of a local robot club and thought it would be nice to set up some mini competitions on robots that transverse and or dig/transport the regolith. 

For now here are some images of the box made with 6" popular sides and a 1/4 plywood base. The sides were joined with dowel rods and the base as well with a grove for a cleaner look. It is about 24"x6' in size to test  differnt sizes of rovers and allow you to sculpt the regolith in valleys, hills and small creators 

https://spaceresourcetech.com/collections/lunar-simulants/products/lhs-1e-simplified-lunar-highlands-simulant

I was able to get a chassis all built and added a nicer PI PICO Marble that has a onboard SD card for data collection. The chassis was redesigned to v2 this is v1 still as it is a little tight on top of the board for servo connects. Moving to the PICO marble allows me to plug and play a spark fun light sensor, so that is handy. One of the servos is acting up and is jittery so I will need to order a few more. The 3D printed wheels are coming today. Gearing up for a robotics club meeting in my area on the 11th. 

Power is 2 3.6v li-pos in parallel connected to a DC-DC convertor that steps them up to 9v. The convertor allows me to use a cheap USB C 5v charger for the cells. I also added a main power switch as i found out the board I chose only has a soft power switch and leaks voltage to the servos. 

Currently finishing out the design phase of the robot, along with acquiring/building all of the parts. 

Done-

1. Tested PICO board controlling a motor and a servo 
2. Printed main chassis and it failed 
3. Redesigned main chassis
4. Added LoRa COM module and found batteries that would fit  
5. Sent a wheel off to get printed in MJF Nylon PA12 (MJF)
6. Have most parts, waiting on servos and a few others 

Need to do:

1. Print main chassis and cover
2. Print wheel arms 
3. Test wheel when back make changes if needed 
4. Order more wheels, need 4 :)
5. Wire up camera 
6. Program some "get it working code"
7. Add arms and micro gear motors
8. Test servos with arms
9. Add wheels and do a bunch of tests. 
10. Buy simulated moon regolith?
11. Redesign and make robust for education version