Are there any build logs for those competing in AVC 2011?
I’d love to be there one day, but in the meantime it’s awesome to see the build logs of those competing.
Working on it:
I should have a third post up this weekend; I got the radio in this week, and so will try to get the plane flying by this weekend. After that, gotta figure out the whole “autonomous” bit.
I’m posting my build log to my blog:
The tag for AVC 2011 is: http://www.bot-thoughts.com/search/label/Sparkfun%20AVC (listed in newest first, unfortunately; not sure if there’s a way to list oldest first in blogger)
PS: I’m doing a road bot based on an entry level 2wd, electric RC stadium truck chassis. I’ve got the main microcontroller (mbed) installed on a custom PCB “motherboard” and have GPS and rate gyro installed along with software to interface each.
Lots to do still: compass install and interface, possibly accelerometer, probably wheel encoders, definitely a kalman filter implementation for the various system states, sensors and software for obstacle avoidance (you UAV folks have it soooo easy… next year there better be SAMs to avoid…), and other fun and surprises… what will it look like? will I be able to incorporate machine vision? how fast will it go? will it spontaneously burst into flames? Or just crash and mangle itself into an unrecognizeable gourdian knot of plastic and silicon?
This is fun 
Michael
Awesome! Thanks heaps to both of you. Hopefully more people will post their stuff.
@mtmentat I am an Aeronautical Engineer and I still wouldn’t take on a UAV platform! Kudos! I don’t think that using production boards like that is a cop-out in anyway.
@shimniok - Nice homemade PCB! I think my hypothetical entry would be similar to yours - off-road buggy chassis, GPS + gyro + compass to make a pseudo IMU/INU.
trialex:
Awesome! Thanks heaps to both of you. Hopefully more people will post their stuff.I am an Aeronautical Engineer and I still wouldn’t take on a UAV platform! Kudos! I don’t think that using production boards like that is a cop-out in anyway.
You scare me when you say such things! Ignorance is bliss, my friend. The drone’s body is pretty much done, which is encouraging. The thing looks so good right now I’m pretty hesitant to fly it, uC-controlled or standard! I don’t want to crash several months worth of hobby time!
mtmentat:
You scare me when you say such things! Ignorance is bliss, my friend. The drone’s body is pretty much done, which is encouraging. The thing looks so good right now I’m pretty hesitant to fly it, uC-controlled or standard! I don’t want to crash several months worth of hobby time!
Hey don’t listen to what I say; I’m not a risk taker. I like to plan everything out 100%. Case in point, my current project, a high altitude balloon, has been going for a year, and I’m up to rev 5 of the PCB, where as others have thrown an android phone in a box and got it done.
having built many a model like yours, I’d say you probably should be HOPING you won’t crash, but I wouldn’t plan on it 
I’ve definitely come to realise it’s the construction of models that is the fun bit, not the flying
Seriously though keep going for it. I’ll be cheering for you!
I’m really curious about the UAV thing. Been thinking I will first convert a cheap foam glider to RC, then turn it into a UAV … some day… maybe for next year.
Anyway… I’ve got the compass on, calibrated, seems to work ok. Having tons of trouble getting the mbed to log data to the sd card reliably. All this worked well until a couple days ago. Not sure what is going on but it’s driving me nuts. It’s hard to prototype heading estimation code when I can’t get much data to work with.
Actually a lot of things have been going wrong. I bricked my expensive high-zoot GPS module due to a really stupid mistake but fortunately I have another module as a backup that seems to work quite well.
I’m still a ways from autonomous operation… but getting there.
I’m curious as to what the other competitors are up to.
Michael
I might as well log/brag here.
I am building a helicopter which is almost certain to win the low altitude competition, except if it is facing another helicopter. I basically just chopped all the electronics out of an existing helicopter, leaving the battery, motors, and airframe. I replaced the electronics with a Logomatic and Arduino-based motor controller, and just got the thing in the air today Unfortunately, it is open-loop and still not controllable, but I still have time, right? Months and months, right?
[Youtube of test flight](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CNW5auN4W0)
I took my car out this weekend for a test run around sparkfun. On one of the first attempts it found the only water puddle in the parking lot and splashed one of our ping sensors and caused it to fail. So we had to make our runs blind the rest of the day. After several hours and attempts it finnally made it around the building without crashing. And just so you guys have something to shoot for, Ill tell you that it made it around in just under 90 seconds.
Nice job you guys!
90 seconds. Wow!
And… I’m wearing a helmet when the 'copters take off That vid was awesome!
Here’s a video of my robot’s maiden voyage testing…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Sk2phHt_c
…showing just how far I still have to go
I think at 90 seconds the average speed would be about 6.5 mph
Shimniok, It looks like from your video you will have no trouble beating that speed.
I guess i better see what i can do to go even faster.
I hope to have something worthy of a build log some time this weekend. 
All my parts will be here today! I’m taking Friday off of real work to get something done on my bot! Does anyone know the times of the previous ground winners?
jessejay356:
Does anyone know the times of the previous ground winners?
recap of last year
http://www.sparkfun.com/news/351
Team Tobor, 1 minute 55 seconds
Bon Scott, 3 minutes 12 seconds
Autobahn, 3 minutes 14 seconds
Autocrusher, 3 minutes 27 seconds
I grabbed a free blog from Blogger specifically for the build log.
http://stkwans.blogspot.com/ - St Kwan’s Home for the Terminally ADD.
Thanks to all for the posts!
@mtmentat - Where’s the updates ???
@kwan3217 - awesome video! gutsy moves
Greenlight:
I think at 90 seconds the average speed would be about 6.5 mphShimniok, It looks like from your video you will have no trouble beating that speed.
True… my robot will be a little faster than that… in the wrong direction
Also, crashing into things lowers the robot’s average speed somewhat…
I had some setbacks the last week or so but I think I’m almost caught up to where I was two weeks ago. Which was about a month behind. :lol:
Seriously tho, I am making progress, especially the last few nights. The main challenge right now is getting good gyro and compass readings.
I think the robot can navigate on GPS alone, worst case. Hopefully I can sort out the issues or else I will ditch my 3DOF poor man’s IMU in favor of a more polished, COTS solution. I prefer system integration to in-the-weeds development when affordable
And, I hope to have the obstacle avoidance stuff in a barely-working state by the end of the weekend.
Cripes, just over 3 weeks left. That’s like a splash of cold water in the face… ok, back to work…
Michael
I am having ping sensor issues. I have up’d the speed to about 12 mph and the ping sensor in front really isnt seeing much. Im not sure if i just dont have enough time to respond to a detection, or if it may be due to doppler effect. At 12 mph the detected frequency is changed by the doppler effect by 3 percent. Im wondering if that change in freq is making the echo undetectable. I believe the frequency of the echo will be about 41230 at 12 mph. Does anyone know what the maximum frequency the ping sensors will detect before they stop working all together? Or does anyone know who i should pose this question to?
If the ping is unusable i guess ill have to go blind. It has made it around the building blind before, but its kinda iffy. I guess we get 3 tries though right?
ok i finnaly got a video up of one of our earlier test runs…before we up’d the speed.
Video from test run today
Wow, those videos looks great!
I have no idea what the ping sensor’s freq response range is but you might post over on parallax forums… one of the Parallax employees may be able to chime in. Surely the response range is more than ±3% … but… ?
Doppler effect. That’s yet another detail I never considered. I’m using a different sonar, but the question still stands. I’ve yet to test my object detection sensors on the vehicle at speed. Very soon…
Likewise, I’m also close to testing numerous recent nav improvements…
Thanks for posting the vids, that really helps motivate me to get my butt in gear
For some reason that last video looks a bit faster than 12mph :shock: