How to build a Mars Rover for Earth: NASA-JPL Open-Source Rover

The NASA-JPL Open-Source Rover is one of the largest and longest running active open-source hardware projects around. It’s a scaled-down replica of the real rovers on Mars, but made exclusively with commonly available components that you can buy online and assemble anywhere, with any skill level. Recently, a major update of the 5 year old rover was unveiled, being entirely designed by community contributors. 

I will do a live demo of the rover, talk about how it was designed, how it’s different from the other projects out there, and how it improves on the previous version. I'll go over what building one looks like and some of the mods the community has made.

I'll also show how we managed relations with JPL as the project was taken over by the community and how it became one of the world's longest running and biggest open-source complex hardware projects, plus what's in store for the future.

Please check out The Open Source Rover website for more information, and join the community on Slack.