2013

2013 Team

Competed in the AVG Sparkfun competition at the Boulder Reservoir on June 21, 2014.

This year we designed and built a new quadrotor and hexrotor from the ground up. We are using an Odroid board for high level controls, computer vision for object detection, and GPS waypoints for navigation.

The team is broken into 4 subteams:

1. Mechanical - Designing and Building new quadrotor frame, camera and sensor mounts, pick up and drop off mechanisms, testing alternative materials, rotors and motors.

2. Electrical - general electrical design for quadrotor, Building a kill switch for safety, Building a beacon allowing the quadrotor to contact us in the event it gets lost.

3. Programming - Replacing the human pilot with the computer, writing software to control the vehicle and do mission planning, target recognition with computer vision

4. Computer Engineering - Choosing and configuring computer boards for the quadrotor, modifying serial communication for flight control boards, helping write software for the beacon

Competition Details

A successful run is one where the vehicle takes off autonomously, reaches the waypoint, and ends at the landing zone (landing either manually or autonomously) without passing into the no-fly zone. Each successful run will be given points based on the time it took them to finish the course and any additional bonus points earned during the run.

Bonus points are given for completing special tasks on a run. Once earned, they cannot be taken away. Bonus points can be scored even if you do not complete a successful run.

25 - autonomous landing

25 - autonomous landing within bonus box

50 - successful payload drop

25 - clipping a balloon (each)

25 - popping a balloon (each)

50 - passing under wicket

We also have a couple of side projects:

We built a mechanical arm that can draw pictures.

We have been experimenting with using 3D printed parts