Status update pictures of the plane assembly.

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80" wingspan plane.

PhiNR purchased a small plane today that has characteristics that will make it easy to robotify. We are hoping to use this as a test platform for low altitude high resolution push broom photography.

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Sketches from last night's informal UI meeting.

Here are some sketches we put together at last night's user interface meeting. One is a heads up display for our rover, and the other is a concept design for our copter balloon.

Hyperspectral imaging of a redwood forest floor.

It looks like our blimp bot might be used to mount a hyperspectral imaging device being developed by a group at Stanford University. The device needs to be something like 70 meters or so off the forest floor in order to collect the required data. The low density gas/multi fan lift system might be appropriate for this purpose. Here are some new pictures of our ever developing lab space.

Oil, Satellites and Raman Spectroscopy.

Oil

David Lehrberg has succeeded in supplementing our activities with a bio diesel conversion system that turns used fry oil into fuel for a car with the appropriate engine. Mega Bites, the cafe here on base has agreed to supply our group with their used oil.

Satellites

Our group has agreed to support the NEO (Near earth object) android hack satellite group we are going to share OpenLab space with. We will help them design, program and fly a satellite mission using a hacked android handset.

Raman Spectroscopy

We are working with Dr's Bin Chen and Chris Mckay, and a local company named Crystal Research Inc. on a phase II SBIR proposal to mount a microtized Raman Spectrometer to a rover.

Here are some links in case that last was incomprehensible:

http://www.sbir.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_spectroscopy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McKay_(planetary_scientist)

http://www.eocrystal.com/

J.R. filming Michael Lamberty IR enabling a webcam.

J.R. Alfano set up a small film studio in our lab today to film Michael Lamberty giving a tutorial on removing an IR filter on a webcam.

Andy Lee's tree analogy.

Andy diagrammed some basic structures we are going to use for the robots.

Andy: The underlying idea of the analogy is that if you cut off part of a tree then the corresponding root or branches die off too. Conversely if a tree grows more branches it needs more roots. If there are more sensors then there will be more user interaction and feedback in the experience.

up and running

Today Geoff and Andy got the R running around the grounds. The "brains" were loaded into an arduino which was wired into the R's drive train. Sorry about the video being sideways. I don't have any video editing software just yet.

Hacking Up the Senseta Robotics Platform

The R has been hack for the sake of wiring into an open platform. Geoff, LT and I spent friday afternoon setting up an arduino with code and libraries to control the motors on the robot. We reached the point where we were able to control the R's drive system.

The old, and closed, system and micro controller

Chopping it up, Open source here we come!

SUCCESS!

First balloon design drawings.

Dave Lehrberg drew up some diagrams of the proposed balloon design.