The JPL scientists and engineers have been creating a new mars rover that will be launched in the summer of 2020 and it is now capable of standing on its own sets of wheels. It took them years of design, analysis, and testing to get to where they are now. The current set-up allows the rover to go through divots that can be the size of one wheel easily and lean up to 45 degrees and not tip over on itself.
To get to this stage and complete it, they had to figure out the general size and what type of terrain they were going to take the rover on. Over the many years of development and the previous rovers that went to Mars, they had what they needed to design and build the base with suspension and make sure that everything would create the correct center of mass. After the base was designed and built, they would need to put everything that they had ready to put on it and then put it on the ground so it is only using its wheels for support.
For the years to come, this rover will allow for a better understanding of the planet Mars for scientists and engineers. When the rover is on Mars, it will be able to gather tons of new data form its instruments and send it over to Earth. With the new data, the scientists will be able to get a better understanding of what is and has been on Mars, which will allow them to figure out why some of its characteristics are the way they are.
With the JPL/NASA project, it is an idea that was given to a group of people and that group needed to figure out how to solve/create the given problem or idea. The Mars rover and the JPL competition are similar in that way. In my group, we are working together in smaller groups to split the project into parts and then put it together when we are done with each part. We have been mostly successful in our work to complete the JPL project on time. Recently we have gotten great progress with our base for the track and it will allow us to start testing and adjusting to complete out goal. The pipe bases were mostly completed over two work periods in class and it has gotten us much closer to the final phases.