You are currently browsing the Scout blog posts tagged: Software

Progress

July 18, 2011 Hull / Other / Work
No comments

It’s been a while since the last post, but progress is being made rapidly. it’s hard to describe everything that’s gone on so far because we’ve been trying to move quickly, but the pictures speak for themselves.

We’re going to try to post a few lines every day with a picture so that you can see what’s going on. What we would like to do now is thank everyone for their donations, it’s helped so much, and we’re trying to keep up with the huge amount of work that we’ve taken on with this project.

It’s probably time for a text update as well. Dan Flanigan has joined us to fill a void that we didn’t expect to have. His biography is on our website. The whole project has been moved to his basement to the dismay of his mom.

David has been doing great work on the software. Many times I call him at 2am, and he doesn’t answer. But when he does listen to his voicemail he manages to turn my rambling list of suggestions into actual fixes and features that are now in the live software. Some examples that come to mind are a soft start to the motor to save stress on the system, an accelerometer setup that measures wave height and intervals, and some code that uses that accelerometer to shut off the motor when the propeller is out of the water (to save the stress on the system when the prop hits the water at 6000 rpm.)

 

 

4/30

April 30, 2011 Kickstarter / Other / Purchases
No comments

So there was a problem with the previous order that we had placed for our LiFePO4 batteries, and we’ve just fixed it by canceling the old order and  placing a new one with someone else. The lead time is 20 days so we’ll have them within three weeks, which keeps us on schedule. In the meantime, we’ve bought a few sealed lead acid batteries to practice with (aside from being twice as heavy as their LiFePO4 counterparts, they behave almost the same).

We’ve also ordered the solar panels that we’re using, which is a huge checkmark in the giant to-do list that we’ve generated. There are a number of things to consider when buying panels for a project like this- size, dimensions, efficiency, weight, etc. Because the boat isn’t a square (or a rectangle) we are using hard-to-find (read: expensive) panels that better fit the shape of the boat.

The Kickstarter campaign is going well but we need to cover the gap within the next 8 days…..

and the video:

This is number one on our list.

In other news, David’s working away on the programming, with some fancy features that even I’m not too clear on. Max keeps complaining about things like size and weight of all of the things that we’re buying, which is probably a good thing because otherwise we’d most likely put a flamingo as the bow piece.

Finals have taken lots of time away from this project (haha just kidding) but by the middle of next week, I’ll be in RI and the rest of the team members will begin to trickle home, and it’ll become a full time job for us.

Cheers!
Dylan

4/26

April 26, 2011 Autopilot / Hardware / Kickstarter / Other / Purchases / Software
No comments

Many new developments, and few blog posts and website updates to explain them.

First of all, we’d like to sincerely thank Mike Desousa, who’s made an incredible financial contribution to the project and has offered sincere and steadfast support for the project since its conception.

Secondly, we’ve found where the boat’s going to end up [hopefully]. The last waypoint will be one of the points from which Columbus left Spain more than three hundred years ago, Sanlucar de Barrameda. This has to be finalized by the guy doing the plotting, but we think that it’s a fitting target so we’re going for it. Also, there are nice beaches there, and as picking up the craft might take a week or more (can’t rush things like that) if it gets to Spain and we go to pick it up, we want it to be somewhere nice.

People have been asking if we’re going to pick it up ourselves and at what point we buy a ticket. At a speed of four or five knots, we’d probably get tickets when the boat gets within three hundred miles (90% of the trip completed). Yeah, those would be incredibly expensive tickets, but getting this boat back after a successful trip would be worth every cent.

Aside from that, David’s working on the software, we’ve bought all of the things on his list- current sensors, water sensors, some new boards, and a digital compass.

The Kickstarter backers have had access to this video for the last two weeks, time to release it to everyone. We’ve been working on a second-generation test platform (six feet long, picture on the facebook page) that’s much more stable (and longer, and properly built) than the dinky little one in the video. Pictures to follow.

We fixed the oscillation problem rather quickly by fastening the keel to the boat properly, instead of using duct tape which let it fall off and sink. Go figure.

New Software Things

April 14, 2011 Autopilot / Purchases / Software
No comments

There’s been a list of improvements to make to the software that seems to be magically growing on it’s own, so we decided that it was about time to make that big list into a small list by solving the problems that we’ve written on it. We have only a few weeks until construction of the final hull begins, and there is still quite a bit of work to do on the software before we can start testing. To help with this, and make sure that the software is ready by the time that the boat is ready, we’ve added David Pimental to the team. David is a student at Northeastern (we went to high school together) who’s offered to work with us on fixing these bugs.

In addition to fixing the things that I’ve broken, he’ll also work on integrating a compass module for more accurate navigation, as well as software changes that will refine and streamline the waypoint navigation system. We’ll be working together on integrating the current sensors into the system, which will help keep the power consumption in line with our math. It’s a smart boat- it’ll know the status of the batteries, the amount of electricity that the panels are generating, the amount of electricity that the motor is consuming, and the amount of electricity that is being used by all of the other electronics. This will help us when we’re testing the boat, as well as help Scout stay aware of, and control, its own systems.

reviews