Edible Rovers
Students act as Mars exploratory rover engineers. They evaluate rover equipment options and determine what parts fit in a provided NASA budget. With a given parts list, teams use these constraints to design for their rover. The students build and display their edible rover at a concluding design review.
Figure 1. The Mars Pathfinder rover.Copyright http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/classroom/pdfs/MSIP-MarsActivities.pdf
The engineering design process is a series of steps that engineering teams use to guide them as they solve problems. To build any engineered object (like rovers, bicycles, music players or amusement park rides), engineers gather information and conduct research to understand the needs of the problem to be solved. Then they brainstorm many imaginative solutions. They select the most promising idea and make a final design that includes drawings, and decisions on the materials and technologies to use. They create and test many prototypes, making improvements until the product is the best it can be.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Design and construct an edible Mars rover.
- Create a written plan for building an edible rover.
- Describe the function of a Mars rover's scientific instrumentation.
- Measure the four rover wheels and determine the range of wheel measurements, and use that range to determine a reasonable dimension and tolerance for the part.
- Understand the engineering process behind designing and fabricating a Mars rover.