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3D Robotics

DIY Drones teams dominate Sparkfun Autonomous Vehicle Competition

Posted by Chris Anderson on June 21, 2014 at 11:39pm

3689601960?profile=originalCongratulations to Leonard Hall, whose incredibly fast ArduCopter (shown above) won the Sparkfun AVC copter category, and Philip Rowse, whose ArduPlane did the same in fixed wing. In rovers, my own ArduRover came in first in the micro rover category, and there were Pixhawks and APMs throughout all the other categories and contestants. A fantastic day! 

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  • John Githens June 22, 2014 at 4:44pm

    Chris Anderson performs emergency repairs before the next run...

    3701764437?profile=original

  • John Githens June 22, 2014 at 4:20pm

    One of Tom Coyle's runs with CDC Slash can be seen in the video that Gary posted, @ 49:20 - 51:15.

  • Developer
    Philip June 22, 2014 at 4:03pm
    I don't know about the other competitors, but team Aussie3DR's first run was auto takeoff, successful ball drop, and manual landing. Heat 2, added the "successful?????" Auto land, heat 3, good takeoff, and a great demonstration of hovering in a headwind, before what looks to be the wing separating, causing a spectacular smash into the water.
    The first 2 runs were enough, but it was a pity the plane was destroyed.

    I would like to thank, 3DR, All the Ardupilot development team, and especially Andrew (Tridge) for making this system so good.

    This airframe had it's first successful flight the day before AVC, I took off in FBWA_Autotune, and flew for about 10 minutes, cycling pitch, then roll. The undercarriage failed on landing due to shipping damage, so it wasn't until just before the competition that we did two practice runs, which went perfectly.

    The ArduPilot running on a Pixhawk is such a powerful system, brilliant job :)

    For those that were not there, the challenge with the auto land was that we had to turn final very close to the touchdown point, due to a wildlife reserve / no fly zone, so loosing the altitude, while turning final was a bit hard with the space we had.... Bring on the lidar :)
  • Developer
    Jason Short June 22, 2014 at 2:36pm

    Leonard's frame is 3d printed. 

    There were two bad crashes. a 550 heli didn't have redundant power and looks like the BEC browned out keeping up with the servos killing power to the pixhawk. It flew an amazing first run. It crashed in the second run with a liPo fire. Luckily it hit where there were no spectators. 

    1:40 crazy quad crash - not sure what happened here. I stepped away for a moment and this thing just flew into the hill very close to a spectator. 

    The scores on the AVC site are all incomplete. Not sure what's up with that. hopefully they will update. 

  • Richard Kennedy June 22, 2014 at 1:34pm

     Leonard Hall's quad looks really nice! Is that a custom made frame or off the shelf? I'd love to get one!

  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson June 22, 2014 at 12:06pm

    Here's a recap video from Sparkfun. It's an hour long, so skip around the good parts:

  • Kirby G June 22, 2014 at 11:09am

    Here is a quick video of my run during practice. I will put up more info when I get home


    http://youtu.be/8JDonNahSUE

  • Pbreed June 22, 2014 at 9:45am

    Can someone please post details of the winning copter and airplane scores,

    speed, bonus points etc....

    Paul

  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson June 22, 2014 at 8:34am
    Tom came in 4th in his category. It was a tough class and he battery problems that led to him being unable to run in one heat. Were it not for missing that run I think he would have come in second. He won his last heat
  • Developer
    Sandro Benigno June 22, 2014 at 7:04am

    Congratulations Leonard, Philip and Chris!
    You rocked the competition!!! B)

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