milestone one

The magellan machine is on youtube

Submitted by mac
on Wed, 03/02/2011 - 23:55

We just uploaded our first video on youtube. It is still from the first test back in October.

The footage was shot more for fun than with documenting intentions, yet the video shows quite clearly the problems we had with the additional mast for the wind vane. If you look carefully, you will even notice that the mast falls off during the secon launch.

01 - Proof of concept

Submitted by mac
on Fri, 02/18/2011 - 18:20

The first milestone of the project was all about "getting started".

Having no prior experience to use as a base to direct our efforts, we implemented in a rough way a few hardware and software features and we simply tried them out.

The main design principle for the boat and the electronics used during this milestone was keeping the cost as low as possible. For this reasons we used mainly the hardware team members had in stock, and we named our first boat Humble Floaty.

Humble Floaty

Submitted by erl
on Sun, 11/14/2010 - 17:42

Our first boat was a remote controlled sailboat, of a type called "MidiB".

Our first wet test ever!

Submitted by mac
on Sun, 10/31/2010 - 00:00

Yesterday afternoon, after a few dry tests performed in the safety of our houses, we had our first wet test ever. Our friends Henrik and Sophia, who live on the shores of lake Mälaren, hosted our team for the whole day and provided the much needed rescue boat. Performing the test was for us the closing step for milestone one. You can enjoy the gallery of pictures from the event here.

The goal of the test was to set a reference point for our future work. All of the our rig, electronic systems and software was brand new and never tested in a real-life situation, so we simply wanted to see which problems would have emerged by setting the boat afloat. We had the chance to perform two launches of Humble Floaty and both of them proved to be ripe with learning, although none of them ended up as expected.

Last construction work for milestone #1?

Submitted by erl
on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 00:00

I had a constructive morning today:

  • Bought screws, nuts, a drill bit, electrical tape, and a band (packrem?) to hold the electronics box rear end in place.
  • Finished repairing the rudder mount (drilled a hole in the plexi that patches the hull, added a separate plexi piece to strengthen the mount and glued it in place. Glued the outer tube of the rudder to the plexi pieces.
  • Glued the rudder together (it was comping apart). Also glued the rudder axle to fix it; it was coming loose.