Tires on the ground ...

Thinking about this denim solar cell. For buildings it makes sense to have it in sheets but for our rovers I think that wires would be better. Take a wire and the silica spheres and oppositely give them an electrostatic charge. Then spray the spheres onto the wire. Then spray again with a resin insulator. Spray again with metal, acid remove the top surface, to expose the silica, dope and spray once more with a protective coating.

The result would be something like a very thin Pyro (MICC) cable. For our rovers we could scrunch up a batch of this stuff like wire wool. A lot of surface area in a small volume, and it should stay cleaner.

If we ask the company about their product, we should ask about this and say how we would go about making it. A free gift to them but it might get them to make what we want. On a large scale it would be tricky to wire up but for pyro there's something like a pencil sharpener to strip the cable ends. A furry roof material would look a bit odd but it would have insulating properties as well as being a solar cell, so panels might well be cost effective on a larger scale.

This one I almost forgot [] Based on those little toys that "dance when one presses the spring loaded base. Each of the red tubes holds a spring and that holds stings running through the yellow tubes taut. Suppose we put one of these, or half a one, onto the tank rover. Then in the winter it can deploy it and give itself a frame with a lot of potential surface area to grab sunlight.

(edited) I'm still intrigued by these dust storms. i read somewhere that they happen most commonly in late spring. If i were some extremophile, with hydrogen peroxide for blood!!! I would see these storms as being like the monsoon season. Clouds of "talcum powder" limonite, it would stink of ozone, add electrostatic charges and we might have something extremely important to any life process. just a thought []

Been messing about with animating a Mars fly through. I can do it, and it looks pretty good but the file is huge. If you ever want one for any cd's you're planning let me know.

This came out of ESA, they failed to airbrush that strange object form the image. The mars terrain for this is from mola data.

Hey fellas. I have been working on a hybrid rover design that I would like to add for your consideration. Here is my rendering and I will type a description to follow it:



In the frontal view, I have designed a two-wheel rover that I modelled with legos (and actually put in a positraction differential and also modelled brake assisted turning, all with legos, mom would be proud). The semicircular arches on the tires will house a transparent polymer that sandwiches our solar panels, be it the denim or more compact design. The wheels are cambered for better stability over rough terrain and to maximize exposure to the sun (70% of the wheel could face the sun if the rover is tracked to drive in a such a way as to maximize sunlight). The battery and motor control weight keeps the rover in balance allowing the telescopic head (I used the standard robot type head, this would fit our observation/viewer package on a tilting swivel. Friction braking on either wheel would provide precise zero-turn radius maneuvering. Either the viewing package or a separate visual guidance algorithm could provide ground-level object avoidance. Pardon my lack of texturing skills, but I tried to show the offset on the tires so that with the camber, the tires still remain flat to the Martian surface. The lego model I build was able to run off of 40 watt room light, but use followed by recharging time could provide daily exploration freedom along a preplanned route. The entire model could be made to retract into a solar ball which could be the nucleus for a landing balloon that would inflate after a large lander ejected the rover at high speed. So basically the balloon idea along with a more traditional mechanical rover combined with the mortar style dispersion system. Let me know what you think. mark

[] I like this one. Whenever a new rover vehicle is trundled out, I just know that it's going to look like an ugly little table on wheels, and all that changes is the lousey dress sense of the geeks that shepherd it down the faculty steps. This one looks pretty "sexy" [] I like the fact that we can give it a bit of a face. Actually, its cameras will have to be ganged to a gyro to keep the eyes level, so it can look a bit like that crazy robot from the kid's movie.

Do you want a render of it? I think i need a source for a new pic of Mars, as the one I'm using is begining to look a bit boring now.

Sure, I would love if you render it. I tell you what, I made this design with the legos (minus the cambered wheels) and it absolutely flies. If nothing else we have the most killer toy ever invented. In fact I am going to try and make one radio controlled (battery pack most likely).

Mark Vitrone