During lab in week 1, group members for the freshman design project were determined. The goal of this lab was to pick a project, assign team member roles, research and brainstorm project ideas, and ultimately choose one of those ideas for the project.
The project chosen was the drone. Many different uses of drones were found when researching project ideas. The most commonly found uses were: delivery drones, rescue drones, tracking drones, and searching drones. After narrowing down project ideas brainstormed, the choices were between a drone that puts out a fire and a drone that navigates a student to his or her class on campus. For the fire-fighting drone, an autonomous drone would sense a large heat source nearby, travel to the source, and release water that it carries onto the fire to put it out. However, this idea was not chosen because a heat sensor is a costly purchase, especially in addition to a drone purchase. For the navigation drone, an autonomous drone would take input from a user in the form of a location and navigate that user to the desired location. This project idea was chosen because it is viable and peculiar.
A deliverable for week 2 was the blog setup and a project proposal. Using the template provided, the first project proposal was created. The blog was also setup and the "Biographies" page of the blog was completed.
This link is the original project proposal:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LIfHX6MocEYHdMZ2BxYuteQnWzemQxn6GJuERyFN8I/pub
Week 2
During lab in week 2, our group received a fourth member. The primary goal of this lab was to finalize our project proposal. The project proposal we originally submitted needed slight modifications to plan out our project over the next several weeks.
We obtained a Galaxy Visitor 3 drone from the Innovation Studio Inventory that will be used as the base of our drone. Since we are not building a drone ourselves and rather renting one from the Innovation Studio Inventory, our new proposal includes what we need to purchase and explains each component that will be used. The link to our adjusted and finalized project proposal is given by the link below:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LIfHX6MocEYHdMZ2BxYuteQnWzemQxn6GJuERyFN8I/pub
Week 3
In lab this week our group began the disassembly of the drone as well as the controller. With the plan to make a drone that essentially acts a live navigation system, we needed to obtain additional materials that will be incorporated into our drone that we already have. An Arduino hardware board, a GPS sensor, a transistor, a wire bundle, and a half-size breadboard were all purchased online. Our plan is to override the controller so the drone responds to our installed board instead of the controller. We are also beginning research on the production of our design, especially in the area of coding.
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| Disassembled Galaxy Visitor 3 Drone |
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| Disassembled Drone Controller |
Week 4
Over the past week we have purchased all materials necessary to build our own drone. We changed our plan of using the Galaxy Visitor 3 drone we had rented earlier to using a drone that we fabricate on our own. The materials purchased last week are still going to be used, and we plan to purchase a drone frame along with the motors and propellors to use for the body. A power source for our drone will be obtained from the Bossone Engineering Building. The power source is a 9V battery. We also started coding this week. Research is still being conducted since the coding of the drone is so tedious. The Arduino hardware board was soldered together and is pictured below, along with all the parts we have purchased:
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| Soldered Arduino Hardware Board |
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| Purchased Arduino Parts |
This week we spent some time speaking to the parts provider in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of the Bossone Engineering Building. In summary, our original idea of designing and fabricating a drone from scratch is the equivalent to a senior design project. Someone working at the parts shop spent time explaining to us all our options at this point. We came to the decision of using Raspberry Pi, a miniature computer compatible to our design. We were able to obtain a drone and all the Raspberry Pi parts needed to produce our design. The GPS sensor we had already purchased is compatible with Raspberry Pi, so now we are ready to put together the final product. Our goals for the next couple weeks are coding the Raspberry Pi to work with the GPS sensor as well as putting the final drone together.
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| Raspberry Pi Computer |
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| AR Parrot Drone 2.0 with Wifi Shield |
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| Wifi Connection |
Week 6
Before lab this week, our drone had achieved flight for the first time using our code. After diligent coding using JAVA, the code was then transmitted to other versions to be compatible with the drone's already existing code. Details on the coding process can be found under the Background tab. Also, with the final report draft due next week, the report was started in lab. The group divided to work on the code or the final report draft.
Week 7
Due at the beginning of lab this week was the final report draft. In lab, both professor and fellow traveled group to group to review the drafts. We were provided helpful insight on how to improve our draft for the final report due in week 10. When not reviewing our draft, our group continued working on the code for the drone.
The link below is for our draft final report:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jGZ6sZqeGH0j2-u2Z58QhwFH5PU8zVOKh8f0VnDaLcI/pub
Week 8
This week in lab, our group continued to work on the coding of the drone. Interfacing the code with the Raspberry Pi computer allows the drone to follow our code's instructions over wifi. The Ultimate GPS Module was soldered to a small breadboard, and connected with wires to the Raspberry Pi Computer. The wifi chip was installed in the drone, and the Raspberry Pi system was connected to one of our group member's laptops. The connected system is pictured below:
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| Raspberry Pi Computer Connected to Ultimate GPS Module |
Week 9
This week our group made final revisions to the final report. Also, presentations are to be held in week 10. Our group begin and worked on the presentation that will be given on our drone. Adjustments to the code also were made while testing the drone. Minor defects, such as flight height, speed, and time existed every so often. Testing and improving took up much of our time but was certainly needed. Videos were taken demonstrating the performance of our drone. They are included in our final presentation.
Week 10
Deliverables for lab this week are the final report, as well as the final presentation. Each can be found below:
Final Report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jGZ6sZqeGH0j2-u2Z58QhwFH5PU8zVOKh8f0VnDaLcI/pub
Final Presentation:
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