As a 3rd year Electrical Engineering student, I have found a big interest in Hardware Design via my student design team WE MARS (wemars.org). It is here I have been able to learn and practice all of my different designs, and this board we have put in the works for the last 3 years. We have gone through several iterations, hit several road bumps and this is the result of the years of researching, designing, testing and implementing. This design is 5 boards connected together to form the entire power distribution network of the rover. It has 4 daughter boards for motor control power, radio power via PoE, ESP-cams, the Jetson Orin Nano, the lights of the rover and other boards we have made such as a sensor module and CANbus hub for our main communication method. This design not only allows for the boards to be tested and plugged in and swapped making for easy testing and reduction of materials used, but this also allows for more students to learn hardware design since I have now had the chance to mentor and coach 6 other students to make the remaining 4 boards to provide power for the whole rover. This project has had significant learning curves such as learning how to deal with high current systems, Ethernet wiring, CANbus communication and system integration.
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