Dreaming of a less busy tomorrow…

I admit it, I haven’t made much progress on the mapping program in the last few days.  Right now, I need any moment of free time I can muster to finish the various mechanical projects I have going on (namely, the new Balancing robot – which I hope will be as simple as I imagine, the GyroPlane, and the DragonCon robot).  After those things are done – which at least one of them should be by the end of the weekend – I’m hoping that I’ll be able to focus on the mapping program, because I really want to finish that.  No, not in an “I’m so sick of this” way, quite the opposite.

God, I’m dreading trying to come up with something to write about besides wishing I had more time.  I guess I better go build things…  After I finish a few papers.

Big Problems

Well, not really big problems.  But time-consuming ones.

What I’m really trying to say is that school has started up again for me, and I no longer have nearly as much leisure time as I’d like to work on various projects.  However, I am determined to continue…progress might just be frustratingly slow.

In other news, I ran/drove out to get a fairly large number of new (and much larger) airplane propellers in a variety of flavors – wood, plastic, and some kind of material that is apparently filled with glass.  These propellers are a good bit beefier than the previous plastic ones (see the picture a few posts ‘down’), and aside from providing more thrust they will hopefully not asplode after only one or two collisions.

As seems to be my way, I’ve decided to take up yet another, kind-of mini project: a balancing robot, utilizing my favorite platform, the Arduino.  I wish I had enough time to dedicate to making this a full-fledged, sensor-fusion-riffic accelerometer/gyroscope balancer…but I don’t.  So for now, I think I’m going to stick with a very high center of gravity (that makes it look cooler, anyway), and a range finder for balancing (probably a sonar sensor).

Hopefully, I’ll be finished with the DragonCon battlebot by the end of the weekend (I’m kind of running out of time).  It’s most of the way there, and I have some artsy pictures of it (among various other things, including that new gyroscope design for the GyroPlane) that I hope to post in the very near future.

…But to me, it's beautiful.

So, I’ll be the first to admit that this is a little bit excessive, but I just love the feeling you get when you can finally start throwing ridiculous things at your program, knowing full well that it will work as you expect it to. Without further ado, here’s an example of just that.

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Map length: 36
Map width: 6
# of rows: 6.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 36
Map width: 6
# of rows: 6.0
Map length: 9
Map width: 3
# of rows: 3.0
Too close to left.
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 48
Map width: 6
# of rows: 8.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 99
Map width: 9
# of rows: 11.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 132
Map width: 12
# of rows: 11.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 168
Map width: 12
# of rows: 14.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 210
Map width: 15
# of rows: 14.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 255
Map width: 15
# of rows: 17.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 306
Map width: 18
# of rows: 17.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 360
Map width: 18
# of rows: 20.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 420
Map width: 21
# of rows: 20.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 483
Map width: 21
# of rows: 23.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 552
Map width: 24
# of rows: 23.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 624
Map width: 24
# of rows: 26.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 702
Map width: 27
# of rows: 26.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 783
Map width: 27
# of rows: 29.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 870
Map width: 30
# of rows: 29.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 960
Map width: 30
# of rows: 32.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 1056
Map width: 33
# of rows: 32.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 1155
Map width: 33
# of rows: 35.0
Too close to top.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 1260
Map width: 36
# of rows: 35.0
Too close to left.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 1368
Map width: 36
# of rows: 38.0
Too close to bottom.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 1482
Map width: 39
# of rows: 38.0
Too close to bottom.
I need to change the size of the world map!
Map length: 1599
Map width: 39
# of rows: 41.0
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BUILD SUCCESSFUL (total time: 0 seconds)

I'm not slacking, I swarez

What have I been doing for the past few days, you may ask?  Well, I definitely haven’t been working on anything mechanical, as I’m a few hundred miles away from any of my tools…but, I have gotten things done.  I’ve written a satisfyingly large amount for the mapping program.  Unfortunately, about 1/4 of that amount went into rewriting things, but I’m all for rethinking code that is a little bit iffy, especially when the new algorithms prove to be a significant…improvement.  I hope that I’ll be able to put up something soon to show off my work; I’m getting a little bit more used to the NetBeans gui builder (which is pretty sweet, by the way), so maybe my demonstration won’t be too ugly.

Progressive wakeboarding turns. Wait, what?

So, today I’m breaking off from the normal flow of things (me complaining) to share a little bit of information about something that I like to do every once in a while: wakeboard. Now, I’m no pro, as I only get out to a big enough lake about once a year, but now happens to be one of those times. I was doing some research today (I felt my jumps weren’t epic enough), and I’ve compiled a short tutorial on how to do a progressive turn into a wake-to-wake jump (pretty much the key to epic maneuvers involving wakeboards). Sorry if the information doesn’t flow very well, my internet notes (internotes?) are usually quite terse.

Experts, take note: you’ll probably find this list pretty boring; it’s aimed at people without much experience.

*****************************************

PROGRESSIVE

1. Get yourself out of the wake a little bit. You don’t need to get out too far to do this, you really only need a few feet. If you get out too far, you could get up too much speed.
2. Stand tall and ride straight while waiting for the boat to start pulling you in – keep the handle in tight to your waist (keep elbows in tight and bent at 90 degrees).
3. Start crouching a little, putting in more and more of an edge (progressive turn) so that you’re at the maximum edge when you hit the wake.
4. When you near the edge of the wake, start to stand up (DON’T JUMP OR OLLIE, JUST STAND UP). Keep your legs and body rigid and tall so they don’t absorb any pop.
5. Leave the wake with straight legs, pulling the rope to your hips. MAINTAIN YOUR EDGE THROUGH THE WAKE!
6. While you’re in the air, keep the rope in tight and keep your eyes on the horizon (don’t look down).
7. Bend your knees for the landing.

:EQUIPMENT:

• Rope should be non-stretch and 65-75 feet long
• Speed should be 18-21 mph
• Fill inflatable sacks (with water), place evenly around boat with emphasis on back to increase the size of the wake
• Bindings should be shoulder width or more apart, both pointed outward at a 9 degree angle

How I wish I had a lathe…

I’ve been spending a while trying to redesign the gyroscope part of the gyroplane, and I’m not having a whole lot of luck.  I was using a 5″ colson wheel as the ‘wheel’ of the gyroscope, and I’ve drilled it out a bit to accept an old hub of mine, which press-fits nicely.  The problem is, the wheel is still quite wobbly when I spin it up on my drill press.

I’m not quite sure how effective it is as a gyroscope – for all I know, it could be just fine – but the excessive vibration definitely won’t be good for the rest of the gyroplane.  Here’s to hoping it works well at least once.

Let me tell you…I’m just about ready to start on a less mechanical project.  Lacking precise tools can be so frustrating!

How imprecise can a gyroscope be?

So, I’ve spent the last hour or so working on the actual gyroscope part of the gyroplane…and it’s not going so well. This is partially because the motor I’m using to turn the gyroscope, although there’s a significant gear-down from the motor to the spinning wheel, is severely underpowered…but it’s mostly because I’m being terribly imprecise about all of this, and I’m starting to realize I should rethink the gyroscopic mechanism. The whole ‘thrusting’ part of the airplane is working well (as you can see in the video below), but I fear that the gyroscope won’t live up to my expectations without some changes. And as a matter of fact, I have some changes in mind.

First off, I think I’m going to use a cheap, DC motor to attach directly to the spinning wheel.  I know, this is a bad idea, and certainly a step down engineering-wise from the way I’ve previously been doing it (which is pretty unorthodox to begin with – two shaft collars sandwiching – and transferring all force to – a thin metal wall, with a  bit of lithium grease to cool things down), but I’m willing to make some sacrifices.  I’m hoping I can find a cheap, high rpm motor with enough torque to get the wheel spinning unassisted -  I have an old dremel motor lying around which I hope will do the trick – as well as a precise way to mount the wheel to the motor’s shaft.  Additionally, I’m not going to be throwing a speed controller into the mix this time as 1) I really don’t need to control the speed of the gyroscope, and 2) They usually add in some amperage limits, which I could care less about.  I’m hoping to use a bunch of 9v batteries…we’ll see how well that works out.

I’m looking forward to finishing up the gyroplane, so I can (I’m loving the lists here) 1) Take a video of it crashing and me crying and 2) get started on the antweight, which I’m excited about, and subsequently the beetleweight, which I’m hoping I’ll have enough time to finish.