Today our Sawppy storyline on this blog has caught up to Sawppy version 1.0. The mechanical design for the six-wheel chassis has matured enough that it is a sufficiently functional platform for future projects. We still have mechanical tasks to do ahead of us: the camera mast still needs work, and Sawppy needs a robot arm like the real rovers. But the mechanical work will take a pause, so refinements in electrical design and software can catch up.

As part of declaring version 1.0, the assembly process has been documented on Github in the hopes that other people will build their own Sawppy. I know there's interest but I don't know how that interest will translate into action. It would be very rewarding for me to see other rovers running around.

The version 1.0 milestone also marks a time for housecleaning. I had been keeping all iterations of parts I've designed and printed on this project in a big bucket of fail. This is occasionally useful when I need to refer back to what I did for comparison to see if I'm actually improving the design. It was also useful to dig up for illustrating various posts on this blog as I tell Sawppy's story. Now that I've completed documentation on Github and told the story of Sawppy evolution on this blog, it's time to discard them.

But before we do that, a big group picture of all the retired parts with Sawppy the Rover version 1.0.