April 22, 2016
This week I started to work with the Hubsan Racing Drone and The Parrot drone, learning to fly them. We also managed to break one so now we need to get it fixed (broken propeller). I also did my proposal for the second project looking at working with the trebuchet group in regards to helping them create a video for their trebuchet.
- Matthew Surette
May 4,2016
This week was a short week so we only had two days in the class and one in the lab. I have became more confident with flying The Parrot drone and the Hubsan. We also got our DJI Phantom 3 drone and I can"t wait to drive it! Hopefully I'm able to drive it tomorrow night when I go fishing with the fly fishing club. This week I also tryed to fly The Parrot drone outside with the trebuchet group but it was too windy to fly so we just took videos with the Go-Pro on the selfie stick.
Here are some pictures from this week
May 13, 2016
This week we worked on the shell for The Parrot Drone that will make it possible to lift a bucket with added weight in it. We want to test the drone to see what capacity of weight tht drone can lift. I also collaborated with an other group on tinker-cad to design two hollow cylindars to be used in the design for our lifting shell. This video was filmed on Wednesday. It was shot using the DJI Phantom 3. I did the piloting, and similtanously worked the camera. Depending on the tilt you can occasioanlly see the guardsfor the perpellors due to the wind. Thanks to Logan for editing the video and Mr. Hallihan for uploading it to youtube. Thursday I made a protype of the basket that will be attached to The Parrot to carry weight. I used popsycle sticks for this model as it was the lightest material I had access to. I am hoping to 3-D print the actual basket later. Friday I helped Mr. Hallihan get ready for STEMFEST in the Maker Space by finishing my model and displaying it.
May 20th 2016
This week I continued to work with the modified drone skin (popsicle stick prototype basket from last week). When I took it up for a test flight and it failed miserably. The problem occurred because the sensors in the drone could not tell the difference between the ground and the basket that I attached. It flew straight up until it hit the ceiling. The drone was incorrectly reading that it needed more force to get off the ground, when in reality it the attached basket. Had I done this test outside the drone would have shot very high into the air and I would have been forced to crash land it. I'm glad I used the popsicle stick prototype before I designed it in Tinker Cad and wasted my time 3D printing it. Failure is part of the process.