Project Update: Opportunity Mars Rover Final Render

Here is a picture of the finished Opportunity Mars Rover (it has a twin called Spirit but I like the name Opportunity better.) I’ve been working on for what seems like forever and was just about done before my motherboard fried on me. I decided to get rid of the wooden casters in the wheels which would have been cut at the same time as the rest of the model to reduce the part count and cutting costs. The result is the same, a spinning wheel but it just doesn’t have the “slippage” it had before.

Opportunity Mars Rover - made of wood! I wasn't looking for 100% accuracy, only a pretty accurate representation of one.

Release time line

I’d expect this model to take a solid two weeks to animate and render, including making the assembly instructions and the related EPS file. The measurements of this model are big too… roughly a meter square (length and width) with a height of half a meter using 6mm board! This is by far the largest and most complicated piece I’ve done and I look forward to doing a few simpler things afterwards just to take a mental break from all the angles and calculations I had to do while building this wooden Mars Rover.