[HN Gopher] The engineer who invented the Mars rover suspension ...
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The engineer who invented the Mars rover suspension in his garage
[video]
Author : UltraSane
Score : 246 points
Date : 2026-01-27 00:08 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| postalcoder wrote:
| Best not read the comments until you've watched at least the
| first four minutes of the video.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Seconded, and maybe worth expanding why: there's a very
| heartening reveal within the first few minutes that would be
| spoiled by reading the comments (which, surprisingly for
| YouTube, are all very positive about it.)
| spiralcoaster wrote:
| The video's narrator is the son of the engineer who invented
| the suspension.
|
| It is even listed in the video description. What's this idea
| that this is a spoiler or integral to the video?
| jacquesm wrote:
| "There are no shortcuts to expertise".
|
| What a fantastic post this.
| mathieuh wrote:
| As Marx put it: "there is no royal road to science, and only
| those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths
| have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.
| rvnx wrote:
| Not surprised of such article.
|
| It's not the first time something important is built in a garage:
|
| for example, the Apollo 11 lander; a lot of people were thinking
| it was made from aluminum folio and cardboard in a garage, but
| actually it was kapton folio and professional-grade cardboard.
| rozab wrote:
| This guy has incredible videos on hiking gear, examining common
| claims scientifically and rationally. He never gave any hints as
| to his professional background, so as not to taint his arguments
| with appeals to authority. It makes perfect sense that he grew up
| in this environment, doing engineering work for NASA as a kid!
| cartoonworld wrote:
| Cool!
|
| I just popped in to add that NASA employee Charles White, a
| scientist involved with the Mars Rover project, also helped make
| a Burning Man Mars Rover Car (back before Playa Burning Man was
| completely and utterly torched twice over by Military Industrial
| Complex Vacationers and Billionaires) and you can hear an
| interview with him here on Charles White's yt channel:
| https://youtu.be/BKGROOedAgI ( Mars Rover Art Car interview with
| Ray Cirino and Charles White )
|
| Charles White is a pretty good guy in my opinion, we play the
| same video game (EvE: Online) Where Charles White is a very, very
| well known community member who is known as "The Space Pope". He
| officiates weddings at our Iceland Fanfest gathering and also
| runs a Suicide Prevention Outreach group in EvE: Online, as well
| as teaching leadership skills.
|
| Here's Charles White giving a presentation as an Official NASA
| employee about Space and our solar system at EvE Fanfest 2016:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atm6Y_JYPEU
|
| Heres a interview about EvE: Online with the Space Pope:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWuj7LfyN4U
|
| anyhow sorry to hijack this about EvE: Online but we have lots of
| cool people like Scott Manley playing, too:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huZlA0eg12U
| wendgeabos wrote:
| I worked with Lee Sword (also RIP) for a while; he was on the
| mechanical team for Sojourner. Interesting guy.
| petcat wrote:
| Apparently the first Mars Rover operated on only 5 watts of
| power. A common bathroom nightlight draws _~7 watts_.
| zokier wrote:
| > A common bathroom nightlight draws ~7 watts.
|
| Philips "60W" equivalent (806 lm) LED lamps are 3.8 watts.
| swinnipeg wrote:
| This is really Youtube at its best.
|
| Deep dive into a niche topic, expert led, compelling
| storytelling, and professional production.
|
| Not sure how/if something this could have been created / shared
| 20+ years ago.
| intrasight wrote:
| If you are an engineer and you haven't watched this video
| please do yourself a favor and do so. I watch very little TV or
| YouTube, but I ended up taking off the afternoon after this
| video unexpectedly drew me in. It was impossible to not finish
| it - so if you do start watching it make sure you have two
| hours to spare. This is easily the best and most enjoyable
| thing that I've watched in the last several years!
| itissid wrote:
| Is it true that a walking system only to operate its legs and
| limbs would still consume more power than a rocker bogie -- with
| all the innovations in battery tech?
|
| Ofc Yes.
|
| On Mars would any other mobility system today achieve better
| performance for it's purportedly stated(neigh most ridiculous
| stated but to be fair difficult engineering) goals i.e.
| colonization? Also no.
|
| I am surprised after watching this that there is so much of the
| Boston dynamic stuff man/dog walking out there, given that
| mobility is so well accomplished. Do you need -- to invest -- an
| anthropomorphized man to scale walls and be stable after getting
| kicked around?? I know one thing here on earth all large scale
| semi(think agro machines) and almost fully(delivery bots)
| autonomous look nothing like anthropomorphics or canines.
|
| Maybe I have the dunning Kruger effect, because I am not a
| robotics engineer, but why is building an anthropomorphic
| _mobility_ platform so important to solve _pragmatic_ problems?
| itissid wrote:
| To answer my own last question I would also think probably not
| that important.
| wredcoll wrote:
| The usual reasoning is that 2 legged robots will be able to use
| the same affordances that two legges humans do.
| fnord77 wrote:
| a bicycle is more efficient than walking, it's not hard to see
| why - moving a mass up and down is wasted energy
|
| > why is building an anthropomorphic _mobility_ platform so
| important to solve _pragmatic_ problems
|
| because something rolling along isn't as visually impressive as
| a complex system to walk, and these companies require hype
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I'd say a lack of imagination.
|
| Lose mobility for a few weeks or months, like breaking both
| legs (or just try wheelchair access) and see how much of even
| the paved first world is inaccessible.
|
| Nevermind less refined places like well-maintained hiking
| trails.
|
| And you can forget about actual trail-blazing.
|
| Then appreciate just how flexible and robust animal and human
| mobility really is!
| verytrivial wrote:
| Building a robot and building a robot to operate on Mars are
| eye-wateringly different challenges.
| torginus wrote:
| I'm also wondering why people are so enamored with these
| humanoid robot - what they've accomplished is impressive, but
| from the perspective of replacing humans, I'm sure we are many
| years away from the versatility required to replace skilled
| tradespeople.
|
| A humanoid robot shambling along a factory floor to pick up a
| plastic cover and deposit it onto a shelf does not look like a
| trillion dollar industry. I'm sure there are much more
| straightforward ways of accomplishing the same stuff.
|
| Imo the biggest advantage of reproducing humanoid forms, is
| that then the robot can be teleoperated with full body
| harnesses that track the human operator. One such system I like
| really much, is what the Japanese use for fixing overhead power
| wires - it looks like a humanoid robot torso mated to a mobile
| crane.
|
| Altough the technology behind that could be done in the 80s,
| with electromechanical analog controls.
| cubefox wrote:
| Wow, this turned out to be an amazing documentary!
| lisper wrote:
| I had the privilege of working with Don back at JPL at the time
| he invented the rocker bogey. (I wrote the software for the first
| prototype with a computer on board.) Not only was he brilliant,
| he was also a really nice guy. I didn't appreciate at the time
| how rare that combination of traits is among humans.
|
| To my astonishment, it turns out Don doesn't have a Wikipedia
| page (though the rocker bogie suspension does).
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Thanks for pointing out the rocker-bogie Wikipedia page.
| There's a true dearth of info about them. Do you happen to know
| if there's any kinematic analyses of these suspensions
| available? I used to do stress analysis in the aerospace
| industry and I've been interested in that sort of analysis
| since the 1997 Sojourner rover.
| thinking_cactus wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by kinematic analysis, but the
| video mentions several analytical analyses of his suspension
| and how he came up with it. They did some computer
| simulations to optimize how it would deal with various
| obstacles. Really cool and clever.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| I wasn't sure what word to use. That suspension has lots of
| pin joints and linkages, which are usually the subject of
| kinematics, 3-bar linkages, mechanisms, etc etc.
|
| I realize that the stiffness of the rockers and links will
| make a difference in how forces are distributed, because
| that suspension is clearly not statically determinant, but
| the main factor in the design has to be the proportions of
| the links and beams. I can't find anything about that, so I
| asked.
| thinking_cactus wrote:
| > I realize that the stiffness of the rockers and links
| will make a difference in how forces are distributed,
| because that suspension is clearly not statically
| determinant
|
| I think it's (mostly) the terrain geometry (plus gravity)
| that constrains the system, not joint or bar stiffness.
| This makes them feasible to analyze with the tools of
| theory of mechanisms I believe.
|
| Also a really noteworthy insight I think he had was that
| when there is some kind of non-planar geometry
| arrangement of the wheels, that tends to create
| additional (perpendicular to surface) force on the
| wheels, effectively increasing the coefficient of
| friction. Think how a child may be able to climb a door
| frame by pressing hard enough on the sides.
| lisper wrote:
| > Do you happen to know if there's any kinematic analyses of
| these suspensions available?
|
| Sorry, I have no idea. I never actually worked on the
| mechanics, just the software.
| jacquesm wrote:
| He really deserves a page, in the engineering world this is as
| notable as it gets. The number of skills casually on display
| here. Just wow.
| hcknwscommenter wrote:
| Most of my comments on hacker news are to point out something
| incorrect or mischaracterized. All I can come up with here is
| that this is a brilliant and heartfelt and entertaining
| documentary. Thanks to OP for posting.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Is this the same guy who developed the Spyderench?
|
| https://spy-derco.com/catalog/details/T01/SpydeRench-trade-/...
|
| https://multitool.org/blog/spyderco-usa-spyderench
| foxglacier wrote:
| This kind of mechanism is fascinating. I built a four-wheeled
| version and even that is beautifully smooth when one wheel goes
| over a bump because the chasis maintains an average orientation
| based on the positions of all the wheels. The video shows an
| 8-wheeled one but it still only has two rows of wheels. I've
| wondered how to generalize it to an arbitrarily sized grid of
| wheels so a vehicle would be like a flexible mat that conforms to
| the ground. I couldn't work that out but I'm no Don Bickler. FEA
| software has a feature called "RBE3" which models an even more
| general case of any number of "wheels" and they can also move in
| any direction while still keeping the orientation of the
| "chassis" (dependent node) rigidly determined by their average
| displacements. The "R" stands for rigid because every part is
| rigid or completely free - no springs! There seems to be nothing
| like it in machines or nature but it's a beuatifully elegent and
| seemingly natural mechanism - if it was possible to build.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| What an incredible mind. I wonder how many more people out there
| there are that have made huge contributions to humanity and very
| few know their name.
| B-Con wrote:
| I know this guy from his videos over the years on hiking topics,
| like how to safely purify water with the minimum fuel and how to
| pack calorie efficient food.
|
| His videos are incredibly well researched, very in-depth, and
| absolutely zero fluff. Very much feels like his cycle is to get
| intrigued by a topic, spend a year deep diving into everything
| that's published, extrapolate what he can from there, then
| summarize it in a 1 hr video.
| code443 wrote:
| The rocker-bogie suspension is fascinating because it solves a
| real constraint problem with elegance rather than brute force--
| reminds me of how the best engineering often comes from working
| within limitations. As someone who's debugged systems under
| resource constraints, I'm curious whether the garage iteration
| process actually made it into the final Mars rover design, or if
| it had to be significantly redesigned for the extreme
| thermal/radiation environment.
| random_duck wrote:
| I love how you can just fell the admiration he had for his dad.
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