Week 18

This page presents the assignments for week 18 of Fab Academy 2020: “Project Development”.

To do list:

Individual

Complete your final project, tracking your progress:
- what tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?,
- what's working? what's not?
- what questions need to be resolved?
- what will happen when?
- what have you learned?

Week 18 "hero shot":

Figure 0: Final project poster

Individual assignment

What tasks have been completed?

Conception

2D and 3D design with OpenSCAD
fully parametric, one file with all the parameters
Gimball controler design with KiCad

Construction

additive fabrication process with ultimaker printer (3D printed) connectors
subtracive fabrication process with the laser cutter (servo holder rib) and the milling (all the foam parts)
PCB production with the laser cutter

Operation

embedded AT328p interfacing and programming for camera stabilization
wires,servos,electronics and batterie integration
easily removable electronics and sensors

Final Project poster

Final project video

What tasks remain?

As explain in the video my long term goal is to use a Fab lab made fleet of drones for conservation missions.

To fullfil this goal I need to do the following tasks:

Make a flying drone: design a lighter drone with 3D printed parts mesh covered by termo film
Make flights tests for one drone with a pilot
Make automated flights tests for one drone
Make flights tests for two drones communicating, with two pilots
Make automated flights tests for two drones
Make automated flights tests for a fleet of drones

Note: this steps are for several years.

What's working?

According to my guidelines, I have fully designed the drone with only opensource software (OpenSCAD and KiCad)
The drone is fully parametric and modular
It is possible to easily change the wood board with all the electronics and the sensor or to change some module, thus making it easy to adapt the drone for a range of missions
The drone was made fully in the Digiscope Fab Lab

What's not?

The stabilization of the camera is crappy
As the first version it is an airplane model, quite heavy, not a flying drone
The model is too expensive to make a full fleet

What questions need to be resolved?

Basically the ones that correspond to the "not working side" of the project:

How to stabilize the camera properly?
How to make a light drone?
How to make a cheap drone?

Here are some solutions I adopt for the second version of the drone:

Using brushless motor instead of servos
Make a smaller, one motor drone
Make most of the fuselage with 3D printed meshs covered by termo film, it is light, cheap and easy to produce. Also most of the Fab Labs, even the small ones have a 3D printer availabe (not alway the case for big milling machines)