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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

I love how you can just fell the admiration he had for his dad.

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

Best not read the comments until you've watched at least the first four minutes of the video.

Apparently the first Mars Rover operated on only 5 watts of power. A common bathroom nightlight draws ~7 watts.

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.

I might be utterly ignorant about the happenings in the world around me, but it seems there's less of this funky experimentation and pushing boundaries not directly tied to hitting some economically valuable goal nowadays.

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?

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.

I worked with Lee Sword (also RIP) for a while; he was on the mechanical team for Sojourner. Interesting guy.

"There are no shortcuts to expertise".

What a fantastic post this.

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

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.

Wow, this turned out to be an amazing documentary!