Touchdown confirmed... We're safe on mars
It was a great honor and privilege to participate in bringing this working scale model of the Curiosity Rover to life. Its final destination will be an interactive display at the Visitor Center at Kennedy Space Center. The project was spearheaded by a robotics company based in Asheville, NC, called Beatty Robotics. Beatty Robotics has created several impressive RC robots before this project, which can be seen in various museums around the world, as well as in their portfolio on their website. However, this was by far their most ambitious project to date.
We began by studying publicly available images of the Curiosity Rover provided by NASA, selecting details we wanted to capture as accurately as possible, since we didn’t have a physical item to reference for measurements. Yes, this entire project was meticulously "eyeballed" using mathematical and scientific methods. It was essential that this scale model look as realistic as possible to the actual rover.
The entire Rover was designed in Autodesk Fusion 360. Since we’re based in Pennsylvania and Beatty Robotics is in Asheville, the cloud collaboration aspect of Fusion 360 was invaluable for a project of this scale. Beatty Robotics used a FormLabs 3D printer to print all the parts and test for fit. Several parts were specifically designed for CNC machining, either to achieve an aluminum aesthetic or for structural purposes. Many of these parts were sourced through www.Plethora.com, which offers instant feedback on machining capabilities. Additionally, a few parts were machined by an outstanding company, NYCCNC (Saunders Machine Works), whose YouTube videos I’ve linked below for your viewing enjoyment.
Some components were laser-cut out of stainless steel by Pololu, and others were CNC-machined in-house at Beatty Robotics on their Tormach CNC mill. If you're curious about how long this project took, I can confirm that it involved 600 hours of design time alone. Beatty Robotics invested many additional hours to bring this beautiful project to life. Be sure to visit Beatty Robotics’ website to learn more about the Curiosity Rover build.
Pictured Above: Fusion 360 CAD Renderings of the finished model.
Pictured Below: Commemorative Blueprint Plaque of the entire project
