K'Nex

You have been given the responsibility of designing the outside structure of a planetary lander. Begin by viewing the 6-minute NASA video of Spirit and Opportunity as they landed on the surface of Mars last year. The cd-rom is stored on MM's desk. Please return it there when you are done.

Once you have viewed the short video on a laptop, you may begin your engineering task. You are to build the framework of a structure that will eventually be equipped with airbags to cushion the rovers landing on Mars, not unlike Spirit and Opportunity. This will be a scale model of just the framework with a simulated rover inside.

Guidelines and restrictions:

1. Use only K'nex pieces.
2. Suspend a baseball within your structure. (The baseball represents your rover.)
3. Your structure should have no particular up or down. In other words, it could land on any side without the "rover" moving or falling out.
4. The baseball must never touch the ground, regardless of the way the lander is sitting.

When you have completed your lander framework, take and print a digital picture. Include it with your homework.

For homework answer these questions:

• Describe what you observed with the Spirit and Opportunity video. What steps can you identify and what was the purpose of each step?
• What were your particular challenges of creating your K'nex framework?
• Imagine you are an alien wanting to send a rover to the Earth to collect more information before traveling there yourself. Is there anything in particular you would want to take into consideration about constructing a lander? Then describe your imaginary rover. What would it do? Where would you want it to land? What data would you be hoping to collect if your purpose was to eventually travel to Earth?
• Don't forget to include your digital picture!