NASA Mars Curiousity Rover design can be built by High Schoolers for less than $2500

NASA Jet propulsion laboratory has released designs for building a Mars Curiousity Rover that is targeted for High School Students building with $2500 or less in off-the shelf parts.

The design can be improved and teams can talk online with others who are also building their own robots. JPL suggests adding USB cameras or solar panels or new science payloads.

Open source software is available for download to operate the robot.

The popular single-board Raspberry Pi computer serves as the “brains” of the operation. It is versatile and simple to modify. Users can control the system via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and USB devices, among other methods.

There is a list of 18 mechanical parts.

There are 159 electrical components but there

Github has all of the specifications.

3 thoughts on “NASA Mars Curiousity Rover design can be built by High Schoolers for less than $2500”

  1. Tom, they talk about design, not the actual manufacturing of the rover. It takes a lot of work to build a rover like Curiosity. Professionals from dozens of different scientific fields are involved in that process. We are not talking about going to another continent on Earth. We are talking about sending a sophisticated SUV-sized rover 35 million miles away and land it on a dime. Can you calculate that?

  2. “I’m sure in 2025 plutonium is in every corner drug store, but in 2018, its a little hard to come by! I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’re stuck here” paraphrasing Dr. Emmett Brown.

Comments are closed.