DIYDrones is going to be at Maker Faire this weekend in San Mateo. We're going to be in the Wired/GeekDad booth (yes, I wear lots of hats), booth 166 in the Expo Hall (click on the map for detail), all day Sat and Sun. We'll be showing:
--The BlimpDuino
--The Mindstorms UAV
--The Basic Stamp UAV
--The Lego Mindstorms FIRST Tech Challenge competition kit (first time seen on the West Coast!) .
Also, our rocket friends will be there in our booth with a 22-foot Delta Rocket that has to been seen to be believed. If you think the amateur UAV guys are nuts, you should see the amateur rocketry guys. They also seem to have unlimited budgets (it helps that some of them are VCs!)
I'll be giving a live demo of the Lego UAV at the Maker Main Stage on Sunday at 1:30.
Come by and say hi!
Oh, BTW, I''ve got five free tickets left. If you want one, PM me (envelope icon) and I'll leave a ticket in Will Call for the first five people who ask. I'll confirm if you're one of the first five, so if you don't get a message, you'll just have to pay to get in like everyone else ;-)
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From News.com:
"Starting last week, the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution is recognizing that 21st-century technology in an exhibition titled "Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles." Pictured here in the museum are three of the six UAVs on display (from top to bottom): the RQ-3A Darkstar, the MQ-1L Predator A, and the X-45A Joint Unmanned Combat Air System. In the gallery pages that follow, we'll provide a look at all six aircraft in the field."
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I was debugging some code on the Basic Stamp Autopilot this evening, trying to figure out why the navigation function isn't working right. The debug results were mystifying--variables that should have been +-128 were giving crazy values like 64526.
And then it hit me: The Basic Stamp doesn't really know the difference between an unsigned word variable (all 16 bits used) and a signed word (first bit is the +/- bit). You can adjust your debug displays to compensate for that (using SDEC --signed decimal-- format rather than DEC), but in other cases you just need avoid signed integers. For instance, it can't do comparisons ("if x < y") with signed variables when the value is less than 0. That's because it sees something like -30 (which should be less than 0) as 65432 [or whatever], which is more than 0.
I'm sure there's some clever work-around on this, but that explains why all the math is funky in the navigation routine--I ported it over from C, where variables are handled properly, and forgot that Basic Stamps can really only handle operations on positive integers correctly.
I think the solution is probably to add 256 or something to all data so that all the results of our calculations will be in positive territory, and then subtract 256 at the end to make it all right again, but I'll have to work it out on paper before I can be sure.
If I were to do the Basic Stamp autopilot all over again, I'd do it on the Arduino, which has no trouble with proper variables, floating point math and everything else (in fact, I may port it over to Arduino soon). I know Basic Stamp is a great hardware platform for learning embedded programming, but its limited variable space and bare-bones programming language is showing its age.
For those of you who have been frustrated with my Basic Stamp code, my apologies. It's going to take me another week or two to fix this.
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This is a short demo of our "BlimpDuino", a toy RC blimp that has been turned into an autonomous aerial robot driven by an Arduino open source embedded processors. It uses an ultrasonic sensor to maintain altitude and IR sensors to detect a ground-based IR beacon. This demo just shows the blimp circling the beacon and maintaining altitude. Eventually this will become a <$70 modkit that you can buy, but we've got a lot of work to do before then.
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Jack Crossfire's daily updates on his autonomous helicopter project are alway fascinating, but today's is even more impressive than most. It describes how he uses a neural network to take the inputs from his acceleromters, gyros, magnetometers and GPS and turns that all into an output to the heli that keeps it stable in any direction.
Here are some more diagrams, but check out the full post to also see his analysis of how cheap real-time GPS is getting and the possibility of using cheap optical mouse sensors for position hold.
Jeff Johnson and I are speaking about amateur UAVs and imaging/mapping at the WHERE 2.0 conference in Silicon Valley on May 12-14, and we thought it would be fun to have a UAV fly-in beforehand.
[UPDATE: this has been postponed. See this post for more]
I've got an airfield available at the former Alameda Naval Air Station nearly Oakland (right across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco) and could fly on the afternoons of Sunday, May 11th or Monday, May 12. Standard safety rules apply, but we'd love to have any DIYDrones friends join us. After-flying drinks are on me!
If you're in the Bay Area and would like to fly, watch or just hang out, please leave your name and preferred date in the comments below.
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Dan Edwards, a grad student at North Carolina State University, has set a new world's record for an autonomous glider flying without power from thermal to thermal. On April 18th, his 5m glider flew 29.4 miles cross country in a flight that lasted 68 minutes, entirely without power or manual control.
The glider uses a Cloudcap Piccolo off-the-shelf autopilot, but the really smart stuff was the thermal seeking algorithm, which you can read more about here.
Dan narrates the record-setting flight:
"The first flights were quite uneventful and downright disappointing. Perhaps with the low humidity and low wind, the thermals were just not organized. Adam tried valiently to catch just one medium thermal to maintain altitude and break through the low-level stuff. No birds were out flying and the completely blue sky was an ominous omen that the air just wasn't moving up today. But Blipmaps predicted today would be a 400ft/min thermal day at 2pm, so were holding our breath.
Finally around 1:30 we had success catching a single good thermal. Almost immediately, we moved over to auto-soaring and Adam watched as the plane climbed out on its own to over 3000ft. At this point, we decided it was time to get in the truck and move out. The first turn is a roughly 2mi flight over a swamp, but 3000ft is about appropriate to safely make it beyond the swamp even if we found no other thermals. I set the aircraft to track waypoint 0, officially starting the flight around the XC course. The plane crossed the start road at 1:47pm.
Off we darted in the little pickup. The plane had worked itself now to over 4000ft, so we were quite confident starting down the first leg. Adam coordinated with Craig to drive ~45mph in order to get in front and stay in front of the plane (we like looking backwards to the plane). After moving through waypoint 0, the vario was calling mostly sink and dutifully speed to fly let the plane move out and stretch its speed legs. What seemed very quick, we made the first turn at 1:51pm and the plane was cooking. It cruised downwind East for leg 2 also without stopping, blowing down the course and hitting turn 2 at 1:55pm, completing the first 4.0 miles in 8 minutes.
At this point, we were a bit nervous, hoping the plane would be able to find another thermal to gain some of the altitude back. From last flight test, we tweaked values on a curve that defined what strength thermal the plane would stop for at various altitudes. This curve was designed to keep the aircraft over 2500ft and cap out a bit over 4000ft. As the plane descended after turn 2, the minimum strength threshold came down and the ALOFT code saw a small upcoming thermal, then latched into it, and then proceeded to start orbiting. The thermal did get better as the plane got higher, so it stayed above the up-moving minimum threshold as the plane climbed higher. At once again over 4000ft, the thermal finally was mighty strong still, but the moving threshold said it was time to move on, so the plane turned out of the thermal and started along the course again.
This is how it went ... stop and watch the plane thermal, see the soaring mode unlatch, hear the plane leave the lift and start hitting sink, watch the plane start picking up speed and moving quickly to the next thermal, hear the lift getting better and check what the current minimum threshold was, stop and watch the plane thermal.
After completing lap 1, the plane was way in the sky at over 3000ft, so we decided it was safe to commence another lap. And then we completed another lap and realized we were still carrying 3000ft at the end and decided to go for yet another! Batteries were holding steady.
On lap 3 about 1/3 of the way through, the plane went through a monster hole of sink and sped up to between 35 and 45kts airspeed. This was also the downwind leg, so we had to chase forward at 65mph in the truck. The plane lost a whole lot of its altitude and was the lowest yet, around 2300ft. I started having visions of landing out. But then the plane made a little lurch, the vario stopped drooping low tones, and speed to fly slowed up a bit. Almost all of a sudden, we heard the vario start chirping. The plane pulled into an orbit and the vario was happy, very happy. In fact, the energy rate readings I was getting were off-scale high, pegging my meter over 19.7ft/s (6m/s) climb-rate! It only held this rate for several seconds, but now I know I need to up my limit! This thermal put us well back up to 4300ft and we knew we had lap 3 in the bag.
It was also about this time we made a call that we knew we had enough altitude to make the field. So, I hit the "soaring off" button, still leaving speed to fly and other stuff active. This allowed the plane to not worry about stopping to orbit, but created a dolphin-soaring type cruise. A few minutes later, we were back to the start/finish line and crossed the threshold at 2:55pm exactly. Whew!
I need to clarify and state for the record I did not touch the soaring computer this ENTIRE flight except for two times: 1. activate soaring mode; 2. deactivate soaring mode. The ENTIRE flight was on autopilot control, all 29.4 miles. On the Piccolo Command Center, the most I did was remove the hold waypoints as we approached them, because they were not needed for this version of flying the course. This did not affect the aircraft's flying and certainly would not have helped anyway. For the record, 29.4miles was autonomous and fully computer-controlled soaring. "
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This was my first year at the FIRST Robotics Championships, and I was blown away. More than 20,000 kids and coaches from 1,500 teams from around the world came to Atlanta to compete in the Georgia Dome. They brought more than a 1,000 robots and a dizzying array of team costumes, mascots and pit crews. Imagine a cross between the NCAA basketball championships, the Daytona 500 and the Westinghouse Science Fair, all in a huge arena that's was the site of an Olympics and running for three days of frenetic competition. Mind-blowing and incredibly inspiring.
I was there at the LEGO booth demoing my new Mindstorms UAV, which was getting a good bit of attention even with so many competing robots around me (aside from our blimps, which we only showed off in private, it was the only flying robot there). The above is my favorite moment, when Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the deputy chairman of LEGO (and the reigning member of the family that started it) and Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST (and the inventor of the Segway), came by for a demo. I told them that the idea came to me when I was looking to do something that had never been done with Mindstorms before. It's a tribute to the creativity of the Mindstorms community that this required leaving the ground! Next stop (for someone else): space ;-)
This picture comes from a great photo gallery of shots from the competition that Lego's Maureen Reilly took.
The hardware I used for the Mindstorms UAV was a prototype of the gear that will be in next year's FIRST Tech Challenge competition kit, replacing the VEX robotics kit that has been used to date. This has been very controversial, not least because of the investment in time and money people have made in VEX. But it's clearly the right way to ensure that the competition continues to move with the times (adding a 32 bit processor, bluetooth and a suite of powerful sensors).
The old VEX kits were designed mostly for remote control ("teleoperated") bots, while the new ones are more better suited for autonomous bots.
To my mind, if it's not autonomous, it's not really a robot, so this move is welcome and perhaps even overdue. But autonomous robotics is harder and the Mindstorms-based platform (with aluminum parts and servos and motors) is still new, so in the limited trials I saw people were still struggling to get the bots to complete the challenges. I suspect that LEGO will tweak the kit by adding some more powerful motors and a slightly less difficult course to ensure that next year's proper launch is a success. But for the rest of us, the introduction of servos, motors and the rest of the real robotics world to Mindstorms is a huge gift. You ain't seeing nothing yet!
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Wayne Garris passed along this important update on the FAA UAV rulemaking process and what you can do to ensure that we amateurs continue to have a safe and lightly regulated place in the sky. (Short form: contact Robert Blair below and express your support for the creation of a new organization to represent amateur and small commercial UAV operators)
"Just giving everyone an update. Scott McKinnie and I had what we believe was a successful trip to DC. We believe that we can achieve an exemption long before the FAA makes rules and that is encouraging. Attached is a summary of the trip, the “Guidelines” for the exemption, FAA certification summary, FAA AC91-57 on model airplanes, FAA UAS rules, an explanation for the exemption, and most importantly a “Call to Action” to create a national organization focused on UAS for Natural Resource Management.
Scott and I opened the door and started the ball rolling, but we need your help now. Please forward any or all of the documents to customers or anyone else that you believe would benefit by creating this organization. If you have further questions please contact me. Thank you for your time and I hope to gain your support.
Sincerely,
Robert Blair
-----------
Robert Blair
PineCreek Precision
15401 Blair Hollow Lane
Kendrick, ID 83537
208-289-4997
precisionag@agristar.net"
He also provide several helpful background documents:
--Call to Action
--FAA Certification Summary
--DC Trip Recap
--THE NEED FOR AN EXEMPTION FROM FAA RULES GOVERNING UAS OPERATIONS
--FAA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
--"UAVs are Coming" (a 2006 article on the problem of UAVs in the US airspace)
--GUIDELINES FOR UAS EXEMPTION FOR NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
--FAA Advisory Circular 91-57 on Model Airplanes (original 1981 FAA rules that grant exemptions for model aircraft)Read more…3D Robotics
I'm at the FIRST Robotics Championship in Atlanta and we've just unveiled the first REAL Lego UAV. It's actuallly been working for a few months, but we couldn't talk about it since it's based on the new hardware that was just announced yesterday as the new FIRST Tech Challenge competition kit. Our UAV uses Mindstorms and the new hardware to make a full IMU-based autopilot, which both stabilizes and navigates the plane autonomously. It uses:
--Mindstorms NXT controller
--Two prototype integrating gyros from HiTechnic. These are not the rate gyros already available. Rate gyros output degrees/sec, which requires a pretty gnarly math process to measure and integrate the results over time to get absolute degrees. The prototype iGyros from HiTechnic do that in hardware, and output absolute degrees, which is very easy for the NXT to deal with with.
--A 3-axis accelerometer to calibrate the gyros using a modified Kalman filter. Basically gyros are right in the short term (seconds) but wrong in the long term (minutes; they drift over time). Meanwhile accelerometers are wrong in short term (they're noisy) but right in the long term (they don't drift). So we averge the accelerometer readings over time to correct drift in the gyros.
--A prototype servo multiplexer from HiTechnic. This is similar to the servo driver accessory that they're selling as part of the FTC competition kit, but is designed for RC use. It takes I2C output from the NXT and converts it into PWM for the servos. It also has a channel 6 input from the RC receiver that switches it from RC to NXT control (this is our hardware failsafe switch).
--A GPS sensor/datalogger (iBlue 747) that communicates with the NXT via bluetooth.
I'll post the RobotC code this weekend, but I wanted to give you a quick look at this. It's really cool, flies, and can now expand into anything else in the robotics world, from cameras to communications. More soon!
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We're still racing to pack up everything for the FIRST Robotics Championship this Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Atlanta. LEGO has me listed as a speaker, in conjunction with the release of a brand new robotics platform. The title is "Taking LEGO MINDSTORMS to the Sky - The LEGO Autopilot' - by Chris Anderson". But that can't be the original LEGO autopilot, which is now more than a year old. So it must be something new!
The video above is a hint (sorry about the vague tease!), but I'll be revealing full details on Thursday.
In the meantime, if you're wondering how you transport a UAV across the country, the answer is: hard golf case via FedEx! Loads of room and very tough.
Here's what it looked like, before I wrapped everything in bubblewrap
We're racing to get ready for the FIRST Robotics Championships in Atlanta next week, and the second version of our Arduino-powered RC blimp mod kit is coming together nicely. We moved to a two-sided board and integrated our custom IR direction sensors into the main board. Above is what it looks like now, in the toy RC blimp gondola that we have lobotimized:
And the same side view of our previous version, which had the IR sensors on a separate daughterboard on a stalk:
We saved about 10 grams and a huge amount of fiddle factor by integrating the IR sensors. I moved the electronics to the outside so you can get to the on-off and reset switchs and programming port. But for the next version I may just leave the LEDs, switches and sensors on the bottom side of the board and move everything else inside for neatness. We may be able to save a few more grams by switching to the Maxbotix ultrasonic sensor instead of the Ping ))). Right now the whole blimp gondola, with all electronics and battery, is just over 80 grams. I doubt we can bring that down much more than another 10 grams, even with surface-mount components and a smaller board. But it doesn't really matter much, since we have plenty of extra lifting capacity with the 52" envelope we're using.
Here's the latest version of the Arduino code, which now flashes the LED a set number of times to show you which direction the IR sensors see the beacon coming from (useful for debugging).
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[UPDATE: after legal advice from LEGO, LatteBox has now changed its case design to remove the LEGO Technics holes, which you can see in these pictures. The new case is shown at the bottom of this post.]
What got me into this whole UAV thing a couple years ago was the crazy idea that I could combine my love of LEGO Mindstorms robotics with my interest in RC planes. And thus was born the first Lego UAV. But to be honest it's a bit a kludge, given the constraints of the huge Mindstorms motors, and the gearing apparatus I needed to get it to drive just one control surface, the rudder. (Everything else is controlled by the off-the-shelf FMA Co-Pilot).
That's a shame, because the Mindstorms NXT CPU module is a very capable ARM7 processor with Bluetooth, I2C ports, a display screen and a great set of programming tools, ranging from RobotC to LabView. And the available sensors include everything you'd need for a proper UAV, from 3-axis accelerometers to gyros, compasses, even pressure sensors. The only barrier to it being a real-world robotics platform is the motors, which basically only make sense in a Lego context. If only there were a way for NXT to drive regular RC servos....
Now there is. This week I received the new Lattebox NXT servo controller, which was first discussed here on DIYDrones a few weeks ago. It's a brand new product from a Taiwanese company, so it's still a little rough around the edges in terms of documentation (and I've got some doubts about whether the use of the Lego connecting holes is actually legal!), but the hardware build quality is excellent and it looks really powerful.
Here's what comes in the box:
That's an I2C multiplexer, which connects to the NXT CPU (and allows other I2C sensors to be connected) and a servo mulitplexer, with ports for up to ten servos. (You can add more of these boxes to a total of 160 servos--all independently driven by one NXT!). The I2C multiplexer costs $140 and the servo driver is $60. Both are quite small, around the size of a standard RC servo or RC receiver. The C code to run them is available here.
I haven't had a chance to put it through its paces yet, but I'm pretty jazzed about what I've seen. But at this point I need to disclose that there is a competitor to this product that I've been beta testing for the past few months (but can't yet talk about). Indeed, I've built a whole new UAV around this other NXT-to-servo hardware, which I'll be showing at the FIRST Robotics Championships in Atlanta on April 16-18. The ability to use the Mindstorms controller, sensors and IDEs for proper aerial robotics is nothing short of mindblowing, and I can't wait to unveil my bird then.
In the meantime, here are some more shots of the LatteBox device.
I2C mulitplexer
The servo driver board, out of its case.
Back side of the servo driver board
Both together...
[UPDATE: This is the new case, with the LEGO Technics holes removed. The case shown in the previous images are no longer available. If you order the product, you will get the case here, not the ones shown in the images above it!]
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The Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation has announced the second year of its amateur UAV contest, called the Outback Challenge, which will be held on the 23rd-24th September 2008, in Kingaroy, Queensland. There are three categories:
1) A remote operation challenge (fly by video downlink only) that's only open the Australian High School students
2) A autonomous UAV target spotting and package delivery challenge (find a dummy representing a lost hiker and drop a water bottle) that's open to anyone.
3) A documentary filmmaking challenge for any of the above teams to make a short video about their entry.
Last year the contest was won by a California team from Dionysus Design, although no teams actually finished the challenge (wrap-up video here). This year the competition is sure to be much tougher. Entry forms will be available next month.
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Our progress towards a $79 UAV mod kit for toy RC blimps is going well. We've now got a much better, two-sided PCB board that we're having fabbed. It's smaller, has more features and now integrates the IR sensors on the same board (Eagle schematic here; mask files here)
The board is an Arduino (ATMega168 CPU) clone at heart (we call it "Blimpduino"), with:
--Four motor drivers (two 2-motor chips)
--Four IR sensors and associated supporting components
--Ground-based IR beacon
--A choice between rechageable (more expensive) and non-rechargeable (cheaper) Lithium batteries
--Port for Ping))) ultrasonic sensor
--ISCP and FTDI programing ports
Pretty cool--a complete blimp autopilot and sensor package (with one ground beacon) for $79! Don't place your orders yet--we've still got a lot of sourcing and testing still to come--but I'm looking at having it ready for Christmas ;-)
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For those of you getting into creating your own PCBs, here's some quick advice:
We use the CADSoft Eagle software (free version can handle up to two PCB layers). It's powerful but pretty hard to learn. For easier to use (albeit more limited) software, you might try PCBArtist (also free). I'm a newbie, so I use PCBArtist. Jordi is an old hand, so he's now using the pro version of the Eagle software.
Once you've designed your board you need to send it off to be fabbed. Here's some advice on the best companies to do that, from a friend, a pro in the industry:
"Most of my fab is done by 4PCB. They have good service, online-quotes, fast turn-times, web-tracking and good prices for rectangular any-layer boards. $500 free for first-time customers.
For extra cheap small quantities of 2-layer rectangular boards without soldermask or legend: BarebonesPCB (they are actually a re-badged 4pcb).
For odd shapes, cut-outs or gold plating, I use: BACircuits.
4pcb can do it all, but they charge a hefty premium for non-standard stuff."
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We've been following the Paparazzi autopilot project with interest for several years. It's a European open source technology initiative that has created both thermopile (infrared sensor) and gyro-based autopilot hardware, along with quite sophisticated software to run it. But the problem to date is that the only way to use it was to fab your own PCB boards and otherwise built the hardware from scratch. We're all about DIY here, but that's a bit much for most people!
So I was delighted to learn last week that you can now buy the Paparazzi hardware pre-made, either as fully-populated PCB or a bare board to solder yourself. That will significantly expand the potential audience for Paparazzi, which is a great thing.
To mark this moment, I asked Martin Müller, who was part of the team that gave this awesome demo of global coordination of Paparazzi flights, to explain more about the project.
Q: First, can you tell us a little about yourself?
As a day job I work as an electrical engineer for a big automotive supplier here in Germany. We do car navigation systems. I have been building RC aircrafts since being a kid. It is amazing what is possible today - much more than what I always dreamed of!
Q) Who are the core team now developing Paparazzi?
The Paparazzi project started at ENAC in Toulouse, France in 2003 with Antoine Drouin and Pascal Brisset. Later in 2004 people in Germany and Arizona built Paparazzi systems and contributed. Since then more people joined. Some names and pictures can be found at the end of the 24C3 presentation. We try to meet about twice a year, usually at the location of a competition.
Q) In broad strokes, what makes Paparazzi special? What was the motivation for developing it?
The idea was to build an autonomous aircraft to be able to take part in competitions. Over the years the various competitions pushed the technology forward. The special thing about Paparazzi is that people from diverse fields come together to work on making very small autonomous aircrafts. There are aerodynamics people good in building airframes, flight control, software, electronics and not to forget RC control.
Q) Where is Paparazzi going next?
The next competition will be in Braunschweig, Germany this summer. Work is in progress to get the quadcopter fully autonomous. Also scientific meteo applications will be important this year.
Q) Paparazzi is based on a thermopile sensor (as is the commercial AttoPilot). What are the pros and cons of that, as opposed to gyros and accelerometers?
Thermopiles give you an excellent way of flying autonomous aircrafts. They give you an absolute reading which keeps the whole control simple. We have flown in mild Europe, the deserts of south-west US, tropical rainstorms in Florida, near a glacier on Iceland, hot northern India and last week a Paparazzi equipped team collected meteo data by flying from the helicopter deck of a Norwegian coast guard icebreaker.
There are limits for thermopiles but they usually do not hurt you. As a hobbyist you do not want to fly in bad weather anyway. For commercial usage - if there is thick fog the on board video camera can not see anything anyway. It will not work in fog or inside clouds and there needs to be some temperature difference. Generally the limit where thermopiles do not work any more is far more towards bad weather than what you would think.
Q) Finally, can you describe the set-up and organizational challenges that were required to pull off your amazing CCC demo?
The two way telemetry stream was transferred through TCP/IP. Off-the-shelf video software was used for the on board pictures. Some special efforts had to be done to be able to get a connection to the German airfield as we only had a cellphone which was very well shielded by the network firewall. One team each was waiting at the fields in France and Germany, ready to take off and fly the mission!
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This is just a quick update for those following along with the Minimum Blimp UAV project. We've modded a toy RC blimp and created our own Arduino clone PCB (complete with motor controllers and ports). Here are the PCB files and source code:
--Schematic (Eagle file format) is here.
--PCB etch file is here.
--Arduino source code is here.
Next up: a new PCB that's smaller and integrates the IR sensors. Just as soon as I learn how to use the Eagle software properly....
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Last night Ning, our social network hosting platform, pushed out a few new features and in the process changed our look and feel a bit. Among those changes: the "Add a blog post" link at the bottom of the blog listings and "Add a discussion" link at the bottom of the forum listings are gone. So now how do you do those things?
Answer: use the tabs above. You add a discussion topic on the "Forum" tab and add a blog post on the "My Page" tab (under the "My Blog" subtab).
This isn't ideal, and I assume it's just temporary until Ning rolls out a more flexible layout toolset. But in the meantime, the tabs are your friend ;-)
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MAKE Magazine's New York City meetup (a hardware hackathon open to all) is next week, on the 27th, and this time they've got blimps!
Here's the announcement:
What can a group of Makers do with a tank of helium? We're not sure! Care to find out? The sixth Make:NYC Meeting includes:
Challenge: Blimps
You've got brains, we've got blimps. Two teams will compete to make an ordinary RC blimp perform extraordinarily. Arrive on time to make sure you get in on all the lighter-than-air action.
Show and Tell
Meet your fellow NYC Makers and show off your creations! Bring your gadgets, gizmos, sketches, ideas… anything you’d like to put in the spotlight. We encourage NYC Makers to collaborate on and discuss DIY projects. If you’re planning to bring a project, drop us a note at meetings@makenyc.org.
If you’d like to attend we have plenty of space for everyone, but please RSVP!
Location
Make Offices, 2nd Floor (Google Map)
325 Gold St. at Flatbush Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
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