Mechanical Design & Integration

Planetary Rover Science Payload — Precision Gantry & ISRU Instrument Integration (Unimelb Rover Team)

Co-developed the science-payload motion and integration hardware for a planetary-analogue rover: a precision gantry providing stable linear translation and repeatable positioning for a spectrometer, focused imaging module, and regolith-preparation brush and drill. Engineered through the late-design and manufacturing stages of the 2025–26 development cycle, under strict mass, volume, and competition-rule constraints — where positioning repeatability and vibration isolation directly bound measurement quality for in-situ resource analysis.

Onshape (collaborative parametric CAD, part-based modelling) · SOLIDWORKS · first-order FEA validation · FDM additive-manufacturing iteration pipeline · workshop manufacturing workflows (Telstra Creator Space)

Mechanical Design & Integration Skills

Precision linear-motion design under coupled constraints — stable translation and repeatable instrument alignment traded against a hard mass and packaging envelope.
Stiffness-to-weight-driven structural design of framing and gantry members, validated with first-order FEA rather than section-guessing.
Tolerance control across mating interfaces so that as-manufactured assemblies preserve the alignment repeatability the instruments require.
Mounting-interface design for vibration-sensitive instrumentation, managing transmitted vibration for measurement reliability.
Subsystem integration within a shared rover architecture — packaging the gantry, drilling, and water-extraction processing units against interfaces owned by other subteams.
Design-for-manufacture iteration: rapid FDM print-test-revise loops enabling frequent design turns through the manufacturing stage.

Subsystem Contributions

Precision Gantry

Linear-translation stage carrying the spectrometer, focused imaging module, and regolith-preparation tooling — designed for repeatable re-positioning between sample-preparation and measurement operations, where alignment error and structural compliance appear directly as measurement degradation.

Structural Framing & Instrument Mounts

Load-bearing framing and mounting interfaces for sensitive instrumentation, balancing stiffness-to-weight efficiency against the payload mass budget and rover packaging envelope.

ISRU Processing Integration

Integration of drilling and water-extraction processing enclosures into the rover architecture for in-situ resource analysis — interface definition, packaging, and access for sample flow between preparation and analysis stages.

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