Today the PSU team finished assembling their rover, including some minor modifications along the way. In late afternoon, the rover was taken outside for its first test run, out of simulation. The main goals of today's testing were to observe how well the rover handled the terrain, the speed at which the rover could move, and how steep of an incline the rover could climb. A secondary goal was to test the gripper's basic operation, since this was the first time the gripper was completely assembled.

Since this was the rover's first run on Mars, there was a lot of excitement about seeing it move. Crew members took turns driving the rover, and one crew member used the gripper to pick up an empty box.

The rover testing was a success, in the sense that the crew learned a lot about its abilities. The wheels do not have much traction, and they were prone to sliding on sandy soil. However, the rover was able to drive a bit better where the sand was packed down harder. This sliding problem was particularly noticeable on inclines, and as a result the rover was only able to climb very shallow slopes. The speed of the rover was very slow, though this was expected due to the gear ratio on the drive motors. In future design revisions, this gear ratio may be changed, if the motors can supply enough torque to climb typical slopes.

One unexpected result of the testing was that the rover blew a fuse during normal operation. The fuse had been placed in series with the main power switch with the intention of protecting the motor drivers from large current draw. However, having both drive motors and the steering motor drawing current through the same fuse easily drew enough current to blow the fuse during normal operation.

Tomorrow's objectives for the rover are to determine the maximum current the motor drivers can handle and the normal current drawn by the motors. With this information, the wiring will be changed so there is a fuse for each motor driver instead of one fuse for the whole rover, and the fuses will be chosen at different sizes as determined by the current limits.