Moderator

Summary

Date: 10 February 2013

Time: 10:00am

Location: Deakin University Melbourne Campus, Burwood Highway, Burwood (here)

Objective: Successful autonomous flight

 

Details

Hey all, Firstly, thanks to Tim for suggesting/offering Deakin University. 

There are a few places to fly at Deakin, but Tim recommends that we meet at the second carpark on Holland Ave (approx 200m North of Burwood Highway) and fly around Bennettswood Reserve.

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We're hoping everyone who can make the meet will have a successful autonomous flight under their belts before the end of the session.  Ideally, you would have been able to practice before the meet, but it's not necessary.

It will also be a great opportunity to meet the new faces that have recently joined the group.

 

Weather

Given this is Melbourne and the weather can change every 5 minutes, we will just have to monitor and see if it's still good to go closer to the date.  However, it would still be a great opportunity to catch up, see what's new and how things have been going.

 

What to bring

* UAV plus all necessary equipment - including laptop if you want to try autonomous flight

* Ground based HD video equipment - if possible
(I will have a 70x optical zoom SD video camera w/ tripod there, but it would be great to have some ground based HD footage)

* Chair

* Drinks / Snacks

* Slip, slop, slap gear

If there's anything else, please feel free to comment below.  If you could also indicate if you're able to make it that would be great.  Hope to see you there.

Cheers,
David.

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Replies

  • Moderator

    Hey guys,

    Just on my rather impressive, sweeping 'loiter'.  I was hoping that it would be the problem that we thought - that the loiter radius was just set too large.  However, i'm not sure that was the problem.  Reading through the wiki info, loiter should just be that, when you hit the switch, it should just be sitting in that spot.  So not sure why it felt the need to roam... 

  • might be wise to remove auto or guided from the flight mode / radio config.

    don't want an absent minded moment to see the mode switch changed and the machine head off to Deakin.

    no doubt there is a clear mission function somewhere too.

    MJ

  • or bring your  .....

    ..... aquacopter

    MJ

  • Moderator

    Hey guys,

    Just a quick update.  Looks like we may be in for some light rain tomorrow morning.  It's a shame that we couldn't continue the great weather from the last few days [went out yesterday morning and it was heaven and TW, my props stayed on (;].  So, please come prepared for a little of the wet stuff.  Given this is Melbourne i'm sure it will come and go and the rain breaks may give us some tim to get the settings through MP correct.

  • I'll come down to watch, may bring my quad also...

  • would be worth doing the pre-fetch Google map cache as well into MP

    assume that Byron is got the NOTAM in hand for us.

    (Would like to see what one looks like actually!)

    MJ

  • Moderator

    I like the positivity MJ. (;

    I think bringing your laptop is a great idea, unless you recon the site out earlier so you can plant your waypoints.  I will be bringing mine and telemetry of course.  This won't be a rushed morning as the idea will be to get things right, achieve whatever we set out to do and to all return home safely.  No pressure to do fully autonomous flights.

    I saw that it may rain Sunday morning so I am actually wondering whether we should start it a little earlier?  Seeing i'm an early riser, I will probably get there around 9:30 or even a little earlier.  I'm fine just sitting there triple-quadruple checking everything if no-one else is around.  Especially with my collets liking to fly up and away by themselves.  I was going to also upgrade to 2.9.1 but I don't think I will as I won't have enough time to test it before hand.  Having said that, I have put in place the vibration reducing foam already.  Maybe if things go well with my first battery, I will upload the new firmware and try 2.9.1 on the day with my second.

    And thanks for confirming the site again TW.  I might try to get there tomorrow morning and check it out - and I wouldn't mind doing a test fly as I haven't been able to test it since my motor replacement.  The students are back at the High School and i'm sure the admin wouldn't really appreciate having the flying machine around the kids.

  • any prior work we need to have done prior to going autonomous?  I've currently got the radio set up for stab / loiter / RTL but are we better to go for 5 modes?

    I'll bring my laptop and maybe even a cable but thinking about saving time before hand - this will allow more time for search and rescue later on.

    MJ

  • yep - I'm a starter.

    I'll face the consequences later.

    MJ

  • Moderator

    Hey all - well, it's 1 week until we go out and see if we can make some er, local group history? with autonomous flights.  (:

    I know we've had some comments below about attending, but just so we understand who's coming, can you please let us know below if you're planning to come.  Autonomous flights aren't mandatory of course (; but we will help out where ever we can to make it happen if you did want to give it a go.

    Tim, just double checking, but we're still good to go at that location? (:

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