It can be hard to get started on building a quadcopter or drone. As a beginner, it was difficult for me to figure out what was a good introductory project, what parts to buy, etc. In order to smooth the process, I'm writing a guide that relieves the beginner of a lot of the uncertainty and decisions to be made. The goal is to get someone who is relatively inexperienced flying, gaining experience, and able to make good decisions about further projects to pursue.
About me:
I'm working with a photographer named Josh Anon, who wants to do some aerial photograpy in the Arctic Circle. I'm documenting that project here:
http://eastbay-rc.blogspot.com/search/label/arcticopter
We've got at least 3 or 4 phases in the project, one of which is building an arducopter based model. In addition, I'm an RC pilot and want to make an ardupilot fixed wing plane. You can see lots-o-words about that at the eastbay-rc blog as well.
I was delighted to learn that there is an active East Bay group of flyers -- hardly surprising, since Chris is in the East Bay himself! I've got an ardupilot on order, and will be working on both a quad and fixed wing.
So, I'm starting a beginner's guide. It's basically my build log, with an emphasis on explaining to someone new what they need to do to follow along.
I've just typed and introduction, and as we start to put together the ardu-projects we'll add information there. Chris suggested to make it a google doc to facilitate collaboration. So, here it is!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rp1XVCacq05-8pGO8yXlD21HAbcKRamyOfxWrK1JNlk/edit?hl=en#
I've learned a lot already from the excellent posts here and in the forums, and I'm sure I'll be asking lots of dumb questions as I go along. You've been warned! :-)
Comments
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ardupilot-mega-home-page
Great idea Mark I look forward to your 'total beginners section' hopefully done in a step 1, step 2, step 3
kind of way as opposed to the "Aladins cave" top level pages referred to above. Good luck.
That sounds great, Chris... why don't you set up the permissions and give a heads-up to anybody concerned?
Perhaps a good approach is to add a total beginners section, and have it refer to the more detailed sections as necessary?
To all: I'm sure I'll be spouting all kinds of nonsense, especially as I first get started. Feel free to save me from my ignorance every chance you get!
are there any other top-level pages besides these ones I should know about?
http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/home?tm=6
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/ArduCopter?tm=6
Thanks!
Mark