Progress Report #3

Our plans have changed, somewhat.

As we prepared to do the programming of this bird, we ran into issues "sensing" the data we need. These mulitlple sensors do not exist in a single, user-friendly package. So we have decided to build it.

We are combining our accelerometer, a tachometer, an altimeter (which is what we are building right now), and a GPS system. We will be interfacing them in a central package that can be used for this plane as well as any other moving vehicle.

The system will send data to our rabbit and then to a laptop, where we can manipulate the data so we can display a flight pattern using Google Earth.

Once completed, the battery-powered package could be attached to almost anything, from unmanned flight to the Terry Fox run.

Progress Report #1 September 2nd, 2008

So far, our project is an attempt to control the flight of an RC plane with the Rabbit microprocessor. To do this we need several things....

Firstly, we need to acquire servos and an accelerometer. Then we must interface them with the Rabbit.

Second, we will implement switches to allow us to select different flight patterns before lift-off. This can be done with a simple DIP switch. Different combinations of switches will create different flight patterns.

Third, we hope to add a pitot tube to help us measure the air speed, which we will then use to perfect the flight patterns.

Also, we would also like to include an IC circuit that help us measure altitude.

The last two additions to the project are to aid in un-manned flight. Our first goal is obviously to get the accelerometers, servos, and rabbit communicating properly. The pitot tube and the altitude measurements are improvements that we can see would be the obvious next steps. We would consider communication with the servos to be a success, but are not setting a goal right now as to where we will be in December.

i am currently looking into how to become certified on this crazy website.....