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!