Wendy Tang Portfolio
Steering System Design & Fabrication
Carbon fiber. Mechanical design. Testing. Mold design.
As part of the steering design team for the RISD ROVER, my role is to design and test a lightweight steering system that balances strict constraints—weight, geometry, and durability—while remaining intuitive for riders to control across rough terrain.
We competed in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) 2026, and won second place.
Mounted steering system Demo
As a team, we came up with two steering systems as above. I came up with the horizontal steering system---a more direct steering design, which is simpler to be fabricated, less components thus less chance of breakin, and the handle horizontal rotation allows for a better ergonomics.
Below are iterations to optimize the space packaging, weight, performance including steering geometry, bump steering, followed by multiple tests on the rover.
User Test for the two steering systems
Evaluation based on the parameters below
We chose to move forward with the crank steering (four bar linkage) based on the evaluation. Then I designed the mold for carbon fiber layup, fabricated the parts, and performed strength testing on the joints.
Fabrication