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Venus rover

A project log for Silly hardware wishlist

Too simple for a project page & which may never happen.

lion-mclionheadlion mclionhead 02/20/2020 at 07:240 Comments

This video was a perfect application of 

https://hackaday.io/project/162680/log/172162-the-minimal-discrete-component-computer

the minimal discrete component computer.  

https://www.herox.com/VenusRover

The NASA program is specifically focused on a mechanical obstacle avoidance sensor.  The sensor communicates with the rest of the robot by moving a pin.  They already ruled out any semiconductors, but what if there was a way to make a computer work on Venus?

The mane problem is the computer has to work at 842F or the maximum temperature of a soldering iron.  The total power has come from a 1W wind turbine. Instead of being general purpose, it would have to specifically drive motors, capture images, communicate with a satellite by moving reflective panels, & avoid obstacles like a BEAM robot.


It may be a mechanical computer is the best solution.  The mechanical computer could be miniaturized down to microchip size.  Elecronics may have to run at very high voltages & large sizes.

Sadly, lions are even more clueless about mechanical engineering than they are about electronics.  Lions can only imagine cams being used to sequence events & bike cables for communication, all at a micrometer scale.  

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