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Mars Rovers At Smithsonian And Exploratorium Now
Illah Nourbakhsh writes "From the makers of the Palm Pilot Robot Kit comes our newest thing. If you live in SF or in DC you can go to the biggest science centers of them all, the Air & Space Museum or the Exploratorium and interact with miniature Mars rovers we've put in Mars yards there. The robots take panoramic images and track and test rocks, so it's no remote-control toy. All Linux on-board, using a prototype single-board arm-based robotics board (the Intel Stayton). The website 'gallery' has pictures of all of the rover's parts, including the Linux processor and the mechanicals. Gallery also has several videos. We've built 20 of these 'bots and they're in DC, San Francisco and Augusta, Georgia." If these were in toy stores ...
So, I guess the obvious question is: Where can I buy one? Followed up by: Are you going to Open source it?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Let's hope the actual landers make it safely to the surface of Mars, so these models don't end up being sad reminders of the science that could have been.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
I've heard alot about these models, and they're supposed to be spactacular. Incredibly accurate. There's a great collection of interviews (audio) with project scientists available at http://www.planetary.org/audio/planetaryradio.html . Really worth a listen.
I called the Exploratorium. They said they were _supposed_ to receive one of these, but so far it's late checking in, and they're losing hope it'll actually arrive.
The robots take panoramic images and track and test rocks,
"Still there... yep, still there. The rock has not moved."
Yeah, 1999, along with closing my bolding tag.
...
Yes, this is real. You can actually control your own rover through the web, and see live images. These aren't replica's, but made of lego's to drum up interest in the "Red Rover Goes to Mars" bit sponsored by The Planetary Society, a group over 20 years old that advocates space exploration and planetary science, founded (in part) by the great Carl Sagan.
Go to http://www.redrovergoestomars.org/Rrsites.php and control your own rover!
I think they should capture more realism by just advertising the Mars Explorer models. Then, when all the kids come to play with them, they would just have the empty display. Maybe the control panel could display, "SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL...". Does anyone else think that the problems with getting something on Mars kinda gives validity to the whole "we didn't really land on the moon" conspiracy theory?
The Tech museum in San Jose had an exhibit like this (about 3 years ago?). They had a little rover model running around in a simulated Martian crater. Visitors could control the rover remotely through a closed circuit TV and joystick setup. It was quite fun.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
They have a PIC 16F877 controller driving 8 digital tristate I/O lines, and 8 analog lines (which I think were just input, IIRC). So we plugged the modified servos in as motors, and for sensors had switches, photoresistors, and an infrared rangefinder. The students were able to code in a somewhat-limited subset of C (due to the freeware compiler we had -- there was a better one available, but the instructor couldn't get funding for it) and compile it down, then transfer to the board (via a built-in serial port). It worked well for those applications, though with only a couple K of memory. In fact, I ended up writing a prettied-up API for the students, because the instructor decided he wasn't all that pleased with some of the low-level, non-intuitive calls (which would be trouble for those students who'd never coded before, let alone in C).
More info here on robotics at Leap: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~roboleap/
The Cerebellum was conveniently easy for this level, but I'm surprised they're using it for these rovers. I didn't think you could get Linux that small!
Mars probes are usual debris strewn across the surface of the red planet.
I think this is a new, autonomous exhibit, not the remote control ones from other museums.
The Houston Space Center has the remote control one, which me and the wife visited when we were on a pilgramage to Ikea (damn your fashionable and reasonably priced Nordic furniture! Why won't you build a store more than 50 miles from a port!).
I played with the joystick part, which allowed two rovers to compete to roll a ball into a goal. It was a somewhat low-res screen, and I thought it was a computer game ("why did they bother with 3D models if they were only going to show a nearly top-down view?"). It was only later that I saw the real models, and realized that I was remote controlling the robots. It was a very strange feeling, like realizing that something you read about in a Sci-Fi book has suddenly come to life.
If you go to the Houston Space Center, try to find one of the many discounts to get in. My Southwest Airlines frequent flyer card got me in cheaply, even though I drove to Houston.
The robots ARE at the Exploratorium and are working great thanks to the fine folks at CMU. The "personal" rovers will go on display this weekend coinciding with our webcasts. See http://www.exploratorium.edu/mars for details.
NASA finally has made a practical technology: Remote Up-skirt viewers
"Honest officer, the probe thought it was on another planet."
Table-ized A.I.