The rocker-bogie is a passive suspension mechanism originally developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rover missions. It allows a six-wheeled vehicle to traverse rough terrain while keeping all wheels in contact with the ground — without any active damping or springs.
For my capstone project, I designed and built a scaled version of this system from scratch, covering everything from the kinematic analysis and SolidWorks modelling, to FEA stress simulation and physical prototype testing.
Defined the geometric constraints for the rocker and bogie arms. Calculated link lengths to achieve the required wheel travel and obstacle clearance angles.
Full parametric assembly in SolidWorks with motion study. Checked for interference across the full range of suspension travel. Generated complete drawing package with tolerances.
Applied worst-case loading conditions to the rocker arm and wheel hubs. Identified high-stress regions and iterated the geometry to reduce peak von Mises stress below material yield.
Fabricated prototype using machined aluminium arms and 3D-printed wheel hubs. Tested on standardised obstacle course. Compared empirical results with simulation predictions.
Add a reflective paragraph here. What was the hardest engineering challenge? What would you do differently? What did you learn about the design process? This is a great place to show recruiters that you think critically about your own work.
You can also link to a report PDF, GitHub repo, or video demo from here.