It's been a while!
A failed test
Our first test flight was looking good. All we needed to see was our motor producing lift on our airplane. Then we could proceed to design the rest of the plane. There's no use designing a plane all at once, especially one that can't even take off for a few seconds. The plan was to turn on the motor for only 5 seconds and shut it off.
Brandon's plane model was able to house the motor and all my electronics, and it seemed to glide rather well.
In the next clip, I used a simple remote to trigger an IR sensor on an Arduino to activate the motor for a few seconds:
Renewed
School got in the way of the project shortly after this failed test, unfortunately. But that didn't mean our interest went away.
Brandon was still very interested in finishing the project, and my other friend, Justin Archer, expressed interest in joining. He's also a mechanical engineer and recently started developing his skills with CAD and 3D printing.
Yesterday we had a great meeting about how to proceed and finish this RC airplane:
Starting soon after finals:
Justin will take over the physical design of the airplane using his CAD and 3D printing experience.
Brandon will be responsible for onboard control, furthering his interest in Arduino and microcontroller design.
Carsen will be responsible for the handheld controller.
Like last time, our first test is the same: a simple short flight that produces lift.
There are a few preliminary things to get out of the way before we begin. In the next few weeks, as we're finishing finals, Justin will be playing around with designing the airplane and the housing for our electronics. I will be researching good wireless communication systems and perhaps looking into getting an RF license if I end up building a custom controller/custom antenna.
We're super excited!!
Stay tuned.