I.R.I.S. Hovering

Hey everyone,

I just realized I forgot to put up a video of our final product hovering, so here it is!

AT&T Arduino Competition

Today, we participated in the AT&T Arduino Competition at the corporation's Midtown Atlanta headquarters, where more than twenty projects were presented, including ours. We presented the I.R.I.S. project as well as a  hovercraft we designed earlier in the year. The other projects ranged from a Smart House to an automated dog food dispenser. At the competition, we were forced to make a few last-minute additions, as our mathematical models did not work in a realistic situation. We added two more balloons to the model, simply tying them onto the frame. This provided more than enough lift, and we were able to lift off the ground. This was another learning experience, as we realized just how much the distribution of weight across the frame matters; the drone kept drifting to one side due to uneven distribution. Fortunately, we were ready when the judges came around to us, and demonstrated both I.R.I.S. and the hovercraft successfully to them.

After they finished, we all took a lunch break (pizza) and waited for the results. After about an hour or so, the judges returned and much to our surprise and delight, we took home the first place trophy!

Our hard work paid off, and we learned a lot. Throughout the process, we were constantly improving, and continued to do so right up to the competition. I felt like I learned a few core principles that I can apply to my future projects. One is to constantly test your designs. You don't want to wait until the last minute to make sure everything works as you planned. The next is to organize your systems. Without compartmentalization and organization, not only will your project look like a mess, but if something goes wrong with the wiring or some other mechanism, it will take you forever to determine what's causing it and where it's located. The final, and most important, is resilience. Our project constantly had problems and setbacks, and it would have been very easy for us to simply give up and drop the entire thing out of frustration. But we endured, and came out better for it.

Arduino Trouble (I.R.I.S. Project)

April 18th:
As of today, the frame has been finished. We also received the Arduino shield today:

Unfortunately, they didn't send us an antenna. Our code works, but the actual hardware doesn't. Without the antenna, we can't send or receive video calls from the drone. We're not particularly sure what we are going to do, as this was the crown jewel of the project. Unfortunately, the competition is tomorrow. I'll keep everyone updated--wish us luck tomorrow!

New Design (I.R.I.S. Project)

April 15th:

We have redesigned the frame, and will be constructing it over the next few days. We're still waiting for the Arduino 3G/GPS frame to ship out, which is supposed to be here by Friday. This frame should prove to be more sturdy, as the crossbars in the front and rear provide additional support.

First Test Flight (I.R.I.S. Project)

April 13th:
Over the weekend, we fielded the drone for the first time at my school's Ultimate Frisbee tournament, Paideia Cup. The winds were gusting at 25 mph, and promptly buckled the aluminum frame. A week before the competition, our drone has been ripped apart. The electronics survived, but the frame is completely trashed. Now we're going to have to go through a radical re-design and building phase. We're going to try to design a frame that is much more stable and sturdy, and can deal with wind gusts. We're going to do our best to be ready for the competition on Friday.

Research Is Important! (I.R.I.S. Project)

So right now we have learned the importance of research. The night before we are due for our first exhibition flight, we have learned that ESC (electronic speed controllers), which control the motors, cannot be connected to more than one motor each. Our entire design assumed the opposite. We jumped in before properly researching ESCs, and now we are paying the price. This is going to be a long night...

Test Flight (I.R.I.S. Project)

This Saturday we will be testing out the I.R.I.S. platform at my school's Ultimate Frisbee tournament, Paideia Cup. This will be I.R.I.S.'s first flight! Earlier this week, we completed the soldering and other wiring, and now all we need to do is put the frame together. I'm rather proud of this connector:

 Our helium shipment arrived, so we're ready to go! Updates will be coming soon.

Broken Propeller (I.R.I.S. Project)

In the last post, you saw the motor start up. That was at approximately 20% speed. I cranked it up, but the duct tape was unable to hold the motor down, and this is what resulted when it broke free:

The out-of-control motor also chopped through some wires on one of our ESCs, which, luckily, turned it off. Fortunately, we were wearing safety goggles, and will definitely not be making this mistake again. Next time we're tying it down, and will take more safety precautions in our future projects.

Controller Coding (I.R.I.S. Project)

Today I successfully configured the 8-channel transmitter with the needed configuration to control the 4 motors that will control the drone. Here it is in action:

My New Favorite Toy (I.R.I.S. Project)

We just got our RC kit in for the drone, which came with this 8-channel monster:

This is what we will use to control our drone, and I can't wait to try it out!