Hard at Work on the Beginnings of Our Quadrocopter

Sam holds up our gyroscope

Hard at Work on the Beginnings of Our Quadcopter

"Let's get this started" - Sam, 2015

We received many of our parts this week, namely the camera, gyroscope and some motors. We have been hard at work soldering things such as the gyroscope, in order to connect it to the main Arduino.  The gyroscope's purpose is for the stability of the quadcopter.  The four propellers, once we recieve them, will rely on this information to stay in flight.

Victor Meyers was noted as being, "our best solderer," according to Sam.  Here we have Victor soldering together one of the first components that we tested, the gyroscope.

Victor solders wires

The gyroscope appears to work smoothly, however we were getting some readings that made it appear as thought the gyroscope was but a mere accelerometer.  Later we were relieved when we had just read the information wrong.  As well, we have began soldering on other stuff.

We have but little to do on our complicated quadcopter without vital parts.  Earlier last week, we created our very own working autonomous two wheeled (four wheels, counting two rear speakers placed as wheels) car, using the allotted parts from the beginning.  This we were told would "get us a C," so, consequently, that's our backup plan.

As our plan is for now, we are going to use four separate motors with propellers for our vehicle.  This is in contrast with the majority of groups which are doing land vehicles.  In their groups they already have most of their parts, however we need our parts even to figure out how to write the code.  Our plan will come along much quicker once we have those parts, but as for now, we are moving along step by step, doing what we can.  

We believe that our quadcopter will triumph against the other groups because of its innate superiority.  It can fly wherever it needs and will move around objects with its ultrasound sensors we are mounting on it.  This is the way it becomes autonomous for the whole point of XV: Auto.  Our quadcopter will be able to fly over its obstacles and fly low when needed.  The programming seems ominous and may provide many troubles, however, we believe we can do it fairly easily.  It will have the most maneuverability, it may even be able to fly above water.  The only place it wont be able to go is under water (for obvious reasons).