Nerd Fever

Or, random stuff posted for the delight and information of my fellow nerds.

Archive for category Photos

Interim Report: GPS-guided Rocket Recovery

Oct 18

Posted by Dave in Electronics, Photos, Rockets, Software | 3 Comments

Saturn Zero

or,

Nevada Dave and the Rocket-Eating Trees

This is my presentation for NARCON 2010 (was NEMROC 2008 … see below), summarizing my efforts over the last three years since 2006 toward building a model rocket that won’t get lost.

The idea is that it carries a GPS and a steerable parachute, so it steers itself back to the launch pad on the way down.

An introduction to the project is in the PowerPoint presentation below.  Fair warning: It’s 60 Mbytes.

Update January 2010: I’ve posted all the hardware design and source code for the “Rev 3” hardware on this site.   The main index to the series of posts is here.

Update March 2010: I’ve replaced the presentation with a slightly updated version that I presented at NARCON 2010.  It discusses a little about the “Rev 4” hardware, based on the 32-bit PIC32 MCU, toward the end. Download all 3 files (and put them in the same folder) if you want the Google Earth links to work.

2010-03 NARCON Presentation.ppt (PowerPoint file)

1004_f2_pressure.kml (Google Earth .KML file, flight of 2008-10-04)

1101f2_pressure.kml (Google Earth .KML file, flight of 2008-11-01)

If PowerPoint is an issue, here’s a PDF version of the slides (15 MB):

2010-03 NARCON Presentation.pdf (PDF)

More in-flight photos, 2008-07-27, NYPOWER 13 – Geneseo NY

Aug 9

Posted by Dave in Photos, Rockets | No Comments

Here’s another set of in-flight photos from the SuperHorizion rocket, with the same e-sled used in Amesbury MA the previous week.

Here’s the launch – this time on a Skyripper H124PVC hybrid motor.

Flight data (from log in PIC):

Ejection altitude 780 feet AGL.
Ejection at 7.2 seconds.
Average ascent speed 74.2 mph.
Average descent speed 15.3 mph.
Descent time (estimated) 34.8 seconds.
Total flight time (est) 42.0 seconds.

Here’s the altimeter altitude graph – you can see the pressure spikes from ejection and landing.

In-flight photos, 2008-07-19, Amesbury MA

Aug 4

Posted by Dave in Photos, Rockets | No Comments

I finally had some success taking in-flight photos from my SuperHorizon rocket on July 19. Here’s the rocket in flight:

SuperHorizon, on Aerotech H210T

Below are the images it collected in flight.

Click on any image for full-size version, including EXIF data. Warning: files are big.

Last pre-flight image

Last pre-flight image

First image - ascending. Blurring is from motion.

First image - ascending. Blurring is from motion.

Looking straight down over the infamous powerlines. Somewhere close to apogee.

More power lines.

More power lines.

Farm equipment. This was one of several severely underexposed images that had to be "saved" in Photoshop. I'm not sure why this happens - maybe when the camera swings toward the sun it gets confused?

Farm equipment. This was one of several severely underexposed images that had to be "saved" in Photoshop. I'm not sure why this happens - maybe when the camera swings toward the sun it gets confused?

Best image of the flight - rotated and cropped a little, that's all. I can see my car in the parking lot, and kids on the soccer field. (Click to see full-rez image.)

Best image of the flight - rotated and cropped a little, that's all. I can see my car in the parking lot, and kids on the soccer field. (Click to see full-rez image.)

Nice sharp image of the houses on the hill.

Nice sharp image of the houses on the hill.

Coming down. Landing site is next to the truck.

Last flight image.

Last flight image.

Below you can see the electronics sled with the Pentax Optio S6 camera that took the images. The shutter is triggered via IR from the PIC – the thing taped onto the camera is an IR LED. (I buy digicams on eBay with “broken screens” – they’re cheap but they still take pictures.)

Front view of camera. E-sled is actually upside down - camera goes toward nose cone.

Front view of camera. E-sled is actually upside down - camera goes toward nose cone.

Side view - shows mounting arragment for camera (note 1/4"-20 screw into tripod mount). The PIC (18LF2620) and GPS are on the other side of the sled.

Side view - shows mounting arragment for camera (note 1/4"-20 screw into tripod mount). The PIC (18LF2620) and GPS are on the other side of the sled.

Finally, here’s a .KML file of the flight for Google Earth: sh_july19

Download that and double-click it, and you’ll see a 3D plot of the flight – something like this:

Google Earth snapshot

Google Earth snapshot