• Question: Is there any discoveries you have made during this project that are not involved with mars rovers?

    Asked by Abbie H to Abbie on 19 Feb 2020.
    • Photo: Abbie Hutty

      Abbie Hutty answered on 19 Feb 2020:


      As I have been working 100% of my time, on this project, everything is involved with Mars rovers, or I wouldn’t have been working on it!

      Discoveries is a bit of a funny word to use for what we do though – scientists might “make discoveries” if they are researching scientific things we don’t already know or understand. As an engineer my job is more about using things we already know and understand to come up with different or new solutions to problems. So I might have come up with a new way of building a part of the rover using a new type of material or new process or something, but it’s not really a discovery, more of a new application of scientific principles or technology.

      Some of the developments that we have come up with for the rover could be used in other applications, not just Mars Rovers. For example the way our wheels work was used to develop the technology to allow a wheelchair to climb stairs, which would be great for disabled people trying to access old buildings that don’t have modern accessibility standards. Or our autonomous navigation systems could be used for example in robots if they were deployed to disaster zones or somewhere where we don’t have maps or knowledge of the terrain, but need to send things there quickly to help get aid to trapped or injured survivors. There are always other applications, but sometimes it takes months or even years after a project for them all to be thought of and developed.

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