Wired Magazine's Chris Anderson University Team Blimp Presentation 2010 Championship

[Vince]

Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine, will visit the Championship to make a presentation on his DIY unmanned aerial vehicle projects (Chris' DIY Drones Site). The presentation venue will be in the GWCC on THUR at 3:00-3:45 PM, followed by a chance to ask questions about the project. This presentation will not be part of the Robotics Conference, and there is no charge to attend.



Video of Chris' drone platforms offers some insight into this presentation.( Chris talking about his Blimp Project)

The purpose of the Championship presentation is to solicit interest and insight from universities that might be interested in a university based aerial vehicle competition as a possible component of the 2011 FIRST Championship. In addition to talking about blimps, Chris will demo some other drones that attendees should find interesting.

Chris would like to solicit feedback on the idea of a university based aerial vehicle competition following his presentation. While all university representatives are invited to the presentation, the topic should be one that many others may be interested in as well, and especially so for FRC grads that wish to participate in such a competition while in college.

Some folks may recall that Chris visited the Championship two years ago to demonstrate his LEGO drone, and at the time asked Dean for some help exploring blimp based competitions using BlimpDuino, a very low cost open source autonomous blimp. BlimpDuino is an Arduino-based blimp controller board with on-board infrared and ultrasonic sensors and an interface for an optional RC mode, a simple gondola with two vectoring (tilting) differential thrusters, and ground-based infrared beacon. The history of the project is detailed at the project sponsor’s web site (BlimpDuino Project). We had a team from Embry Riddle attend the Championship last year to fly one of Chris' blimps around the dome as a proof of flying concept.

If anyone is interested in learning more, please contact me (vincent.wilczynski AT uscga.edu, or via PM, or via this thread) for more information.

[Joe Johnson]

university based aerial vehicle competition... ...for FRC grads... ...to participate in... ...while in college.

***

ZOINKS!!!! Sounds great!

I would have loved to have a hands on project as an undergrad such as an autonomous blimpy thing -- Arduino-based controller, open source, vectoring thrusters, ultrasonic sensors... ...it's all good.

But HONESTLY, you had me at AUTOMONOUS BLIMP!!!

So... ...who's going to go to this presentation and report back to us unlucky folk who can't attend the CMP this year?

Joe J.


*** took liberties with the snippets above, but the words are there I just selected the ones I liked best

[Frenchie]

How likely is it that this project will come about? Who could keep us posted?

Either way, that blimpduino project is definitely neat.

[JamesBrown]

I am extremely disappointed I can't make it to Atlanta with the team now. The last 2 years I have been TA'ing RPI's Intro to embedded control class where we use blimps to teach principals of Embedded Control. We have brought our blimps to Manchester the last 2 or 3 years and down to Atlanta at least twice.

Blimps are a really cool platform to program, when they are weighted and balanced properly you can control them extremely well.

[Vince]

To fill in some of the missing pieces....

1. The meeting will be held in room C-304.

2. We have had very strong response from the universities on the FIRST-contact list concerning the meeting. One purpose of the meeting is to measure the interest of universities in this project. Participants will be invited to help guide the process, including defining the parameters of the competition, competition structure/tasks, schedule, ... Chris is very active in technology focused social networks, and I suspect the discussion next week will continue virtually over the next few months to fully define the project.

3. As far as the feasibility of the project happening, that will be determined by the combined interest of the community.

4. The blimps are quite cool - they just sort of drift around in a happy place when you aren't controlling them.

Feel free to post other questions and I'll see if I can help answer them.

[Joe Johnson]

So... ...who's going to go to this presentation and report back to us unlucky folk who can't attend the CMP this year?

Anyone?

Joe J.

[Vince]

Here is an idea starter on thoughts about blimp competitions..... It was developed last year as when we were exploring potential ideas concerning blimps....BlimpDuino Competition Ideas

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

Blimps are a really cool platform to program, when they are weighted and balanced properly you can control them extremely well.

...and then there's that inversion layer in the Georgia Dome about halfway up that can take an unwary bimp right to the roof...

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

...and then there's that inversion layer in the Georgia Dome about halfway up that can take an unwary bimp right to the roof...

Every year it seems that someone manages to crash the RPI blimps into the lighting truss over the playing field in Manchester... One year they got it really tangled up and security put an end to blimp flying for a while.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

Every year it seems that someone manages to crash the RPI blimps into the lighting truss over the playing field in Manchester... One year they got it really tangled up and security put an end to blimp flying for a while.

Maybe there's some correlation between the crashes and high school student blimp pilots who don't have their drivers licenses yet....

[Joe Johnson]

Back on topic. Are there any ChiefDelphi.com folk who are planning on attending?

I would like to have a few words of summary in a message CD if you please.

Thanks,
Joe J.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Planning on going.

IF I won't be able to I will try to get ICanCountTo19 (My brother) to attend and take notes.

[Mark McLeod]

There is a conflict with the Bill Miller 3:30 "Upcoming FRC Technologies" presentation in the Pits, so plan to cover both talks.

[Andrew Schreiber]

First off, the following are my impressions nothing more. Take them with a grain of salt.

1) Utter Communication Breakdown - for a session they wanted community opinion and feedback they did a bad job of getting people there. It showed up on none of the schedules I could find and the various communications (both here on CD and to the University reps) did not contain a room number. The GWCC is a HUGE place and we checked several panels before finding the right one (tucked into a corner btw). Keep this in mind if I seem too negative, this seriously lowered my overall impression straight off the bat. (Keep this in mind when doing things, if a person cannot find your session they tend to get irritated)


2) Concept - The idea is that a FIRST style competition would be started at the university level to help keep interest in STEM among college students.

3) Hardware -

BlimpDuino
+Very low cost ($89)
+Safe, even in the case of major failure there is no chance of it falling and crashing to the ground.
+Stable Platform, not a ton of jarring and shaking around.
-SLOW
-Kinda boring
-Very limited mechanical modifications
-Limited payload

Quadcopter
+Fast
+"Sexy"
+Very Custom
+ Much MUCH Higher payload
-Expensive ($300+)
-Not safe, put a finger in the blades of one of these, it will hurt.
-Fragile, if this thing crashes or loses power and then crashes it will break.

HiTechnic Blimp Kit (Couldn't find a link)
52" Envelope
3DC motors (No clue on amperage)
3 axis accel
Digital Compass
Ultrasonic Sensor
1 Mb External Flash Memory
2x sensor ports (2 Digital In 2 Digital Out 2 Analog In per port)
1 Servo
32 MHz processor
128k Flash
16k Ram

3) Concerns Raised By Audience

Similar competitions. (SAE, Micromouse)
Mostly CS/CE (with blimp). Not much in the way of mechanical engineering stuff.
How will you make these things interesting to students that grew up playing with 150lb robots?
(Personal)Feels more like a multidisciplinary (CE/CS) engineering course to teach sensor fusion and various AI concepts.

<opinion>
It is my opinion that this system is cool, I would love to play with the stuff. But it will not have the sex appeal of an FRC robot*. Additionally it simply is NOT mechanical enough for some teams. Personally, as a CS guy I find fully auton stuff very very cool. The more of a standardized hardware we have the easier it is because it means things are less likely to break. Now, perhaps this system would work well as a small sub competition for programmers at the FRC/FTC level but it would not satisfy the hunger of college level FIRSTers.

Now, as I mentioned, I would love to see these things enter into the classroom as a tool in educator's arsenal. Even at the high school and middle school level. If we could make some good libraries and simple drag and drop interfaces I could see middle school students LOVING them (as a great way of getting them interested in STEM)

Now, these are just my opinions, they do not represent the feelings of any other attendees or the presenters. My personal feeling is that this will NOT become College Level FRC. It is cool but it is not FIRST.

*This is based on a male perspective but if you notice what excites men it is fast cars, big explosions, and big engines. FRC meets those needs. Robots are fast, hit hard, and have a lot of power. (And they are shiny) This is imho part of the reason that FTC/VEX are not as effective as inspirational tools as FRC bots.
</opinion>

Hope this is enough information here for the curious folks. If you have specific questions I will do my best to answer them.