Fall 2022 Project Status:

Mission Statement:

The purpose of the Mars Analog Vehicle for Robotic Inspection and Construction (MAVRIC) project is to produce a mars-style rover to compete in the University Rover Challenge (URC) in Hanksville, Utah.

Project Goal:

MAVRIC’s main goal for the 2023 spring semester was to prepare our rover for the System Acceptance Review (SAR) on March 3rd. The rover was prepared for and the SAR was submitted, but we were not accepted to the 2023 competition. This lead us to changing our goals for the remainder of the semester towards updating many of the minor rover assemblies, preparing for major design adjustments for next semester, beginning a mass update of the rover systems, and finishing the letter of our previous deliverables.

Project Deliverables:

The main deliverable this semester is to submit the SAR. This requires a five minute video demonstrating the rover capabilities and a six page document describing the rover’s systems, our team’s approach to each of URC’s four missions, and our testing plans. In addition, a page describing our science system must be written and we must have a Gannt chart and a budget. The systems team’s deliverable is rewiring the rover with lower voltage batteries and creating a comprehensive wiring diagram and documentation for the new system. The mechanical team’s deliverable is to design and build a competition ready science system.

To learn more about the MAVRIC goals and deliverables, check out the mechanical and systems team pages.

Spring 2023 Accomplishments

This semester, our team has updated the rover in preparation for the SAR. The documentation has been created and submitted to the competition, which fulfilled our primary deliverable. Unfortunately, we were not accepted to the URC 2023 competition this year. We rewired our rover early this semester, completing the physical aspect of the systems team’s deliverable. Most of the documentation that is required by the deliverable is also complete. A functional prototype of the science system has been created, fulfilling the mechanical team’s deliverable, but new modifications to the system have been started with the intent of making the system functional without intervention for the expo. The Jetson board we use for our main system computer does not allow many of the updates we want for the rover, so we are looking to upgrade to an Intel Nuc next semester.

Spring 2023 Lessons Learned

This semester had some rather difficult lessons to learn. We learned that the competition has become much more stiff since last semester, and we needed to prepare for the SAR better. The biggest lesson is that we needed to focus on the documentation and report writeup much earlier for the SAR. While it would be a bit difficult to write a complete SAR before the rover was ready, we could have started on it much earlier in the semester, perhaps even in the fall semester, instead of waiting for the rover to be ready before we made the report. The semester has been filled with many lessons in leadership as each of us learn to better work with our teams and become accustomed to the leadership structure. The team has also learned that, while many of our designs seemed great in concept, they were more difficult to implement and less effective than hoped for, with unforeseen weaknesses in the designs.

Fall 2022 Accomplishments

Last semester, MAVRIC has accomplished many of our goals and is on track to complete our deliverables by the end of the semester. We were able to achieve our goals in planning, designing, and many of our goals in coding, and we set ourselves up to complete our goals in fabrication and troubleshooting by the end of the semester. Before the semester began, a group of MAVRIC members who went to competition over the summer got together and reflected on the rover’s performance. This group created a document listing what went well and what needs improvement, which drove our decision-making this semester. This document helped figure out what rover components needed to be improved, which was reflected in the tasks we gave MAVRIC members this semester. The mechanical team was able to come up with redesigns for the suspension members and drive motor assemblies, along with redesigns for the shoulder and wrist of the arm. The systems team researched and procured new motors for the drive system, coded a library to control them and received feedback from them via a CAN bus. Along with this, the systems team programmed a microcontroller to communicate with the rover’s main computer to control electronic components like servos and actuators. This can be used to control end effector components and the automated science that will be made next semester. The progress that MAVRIC has made has put us in a position to complete our deliverables this semester and put us in a good position to complete all rover modifications and improvements we have plans for next semester. If MAVRIC keeps up the good work into next semester, we will do great at competition.

Fall 2022 Lessons Learned

MAVRIC has learned some valuable lessons this semester. The biggest lesson we learned this semester was the power of strategy. MAVRIC tried something new this semester: creating a list of requirements. This list tells us what the rover needs to be able to do to complete competition tasks. We have used these requirements to guide us in deciding what parts of the rover need to be worked on and where the rover is at performance-wise. Another lesson we learned this semester is the power of friendship. CYSAR is a new M2I project that is also making a rover competing in a different competition than ours. Because of this, we have been in constant communication throughout the semester sharing ideas and knowledge. Both MAVRIC and CYSAR have benefited from this.

History:

The Mars Analog Vehicle for Robotic Inspection and Construction (MAVRIC) project is a part of the Make to Innovate (M:2:I) program of the Aerospace Engineering Department at Iowa State University. M:2:I provides students of all majors practical, hands-on engineering experience that they won’t typically receive during classes and is focused on getting students prepared for working in industry. You can learn more about M:2:I and the other projects involved by going to their website: https://m2i.aere.iastate.edu/.

MAVRIC is one of the founding members of M:2:I and has gone through many iterations through the years. We are a multidisciplinary team consisting of aerospace, cyber-security, electrical, mechanical, and software engineers. In the past, we have competed in the University Rover Challenge (URC) held in Hanksville, Utah. MAVRIC is currently finishing our new rover Scarab, to once again compete at URC.


 

 

Former project lead Gage Lochner explains the rover to children during an outreach event at Fellows Elementary School in Ames, Iowa.