Just imagine you're a Martian for a minute. You're standing out in your yard, and this... "thing" drops out of the sky on a tether.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this thing works on August 5th.
Got an Arduino for my birthday, and I'm sooooo excited!
Okay, so you're probably thinking "What the heck is an... arr.. arr... thing?" Well, I'll tell you: It's an open source electronics prototyping platform, so I can make my own rocket payloads and robots and whatever else strikes my fancy.
We used an Arduino last semester for our USLI payload at Iowa State University. We started out using a PIC, which is similar but way more complicated. So we switched over to Arduino and the project moved along five times faster.
I'm looking forward to all of the different projects that will come of this. My first project will probably be a very simple robot, so stay tuned for that!
You can watch the Jet Propulsion Laboratory put together the new Mars rover named Curiosity, via continuous live feed from a webcam overlooking the clean room. Check it out!
If the embedded player doesn't work, click this link:
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl
