Sojourner F17: Solidworks Design
By Malak Alamad (Design and Manufacturing) | Fall 2017 | Sojourner Team
Introduction:
Once the Sojourner team began thinking about the design of the rover for our project, we asked for last semester’s prototype to use as a template. Some parts of the previous project were kept the same, some were slightly modified, and some were redesigned from scratch.
Discussion:
Initially, one of the wheels was missing, so I designed the missing wheel in solid works. The design of the wheel is shown below. After some testing, I redesigned the wheel to have triangular ridges, instead of rectangular.
Another immediate issue we noticed is that the rocker bogie suspension system was very fragile. I then redesigned that as well for better strength and stability.
The next part of the design that we worked on was the phone and solar mount. It took us a while to figure out how this will be designed. We tried to make it in a way where everything is easily mountable and function, while still making the design lightweight. The final design we chose is shown below. The two solar panels will be placed on the top and the phone will slide into the pocket in the middle.
This phone and solar mount will be mounted to the chassis via screw mounts that I also designed. There will be two of them on the sides of the chassis.
The chassis also took us some time to figure out. We needed more holes on the side of the chassis for wiring, so I added them. A component we needed to consider in this design was the sensors. I made an opening in the front of the chassis for the proximity sensor and I designed a mount that will attach to the middle of the chassis for the IR shield.
During the course of our project, we had to change the motors we were using. This required us to reconsider parts of the design, the new motors do not fit into the motor mounts that we initially had, so I changed the size to fit them. They also no longer fit into the wheels, so they were made a little longer.
During the course of our project, we had to change the motors we were using. This required us to reconsider parts of the design, the new motors do not fit into the motor mounts that we initially had, so I changed the size to fit them. They also no longer fit into the wheels, so they were made a little longer.
Conclusion:
Below is the completed assembly of our design for the rover along with the exploded view.
