Conor, Entry #5, If Only Our UAVs Could Fly By Like Time

It seems like whenever I am off 3D printing one of my parts, I always tend to miss the good stuff. In my last blog entry I mentioned the quadcopter catching on fire. Recently, I missed the event of one of the blades tangling in the supposedly fail-safe line which resulted in the quadcopter flipping upside down and crashing into the ground. This event also broke two of my 3D printed parts, which resulted in more 3D printing from me. But not all that I miss is catastrophic. Most recently, EJ and Ben finally cleaned up wall following. This means that all of the different controllers that we made are done, and we can now finally piece them together to finish our whole project! This however is easier said than done.

This diagram is what I made the first week I was here. This is supposed to simplify all of the nodes that are happening by visualizing which topic publishes to which subscribing topic. Obviously there is a lot going on so it is by no means simple. 

I however have been occupied by a different project recently. I am now designing a charging station that will lie on top of the segbot for our UAV's to use. This charging station opens up new possibilities for further research, such as increasing autonomous exploration for the drones. A typical exploration project with a uav is limited to the relatively small flight time that its batteries supply, which is under ten minutes. With this charging station, the uav's can recharge by harnessing the segbot's power, whose batteries last for a surplus of three hours.

I have finished designing all of the components for the charging station, and now it is time to 3D print, lazer cut, and vacuum form all of the parts. This should assuredly keep me gainfully employed here during my last three days. This week for me is not only my last, but also the most exciting. I will be leaving with a boom, but all of us in the lab are hoping that it won't be a crash landing.