July 1, Wednesday

We continued working on the propulsion legs and all 6 legs, 6 axles, 4 universal joints and 2 platforms for both sides were 3D printed. The total mass came up to 46.6g, which we were not expecting as we initially planned for a payload of <100g. This prompted immediate research into other propulsion methods, like motor and propeller, compressed gas, etc.

We also started considering different ways to control our servo motors without it being hooked up to our laptop. We had our eyes on Arduino joysticks. However, after briefly looking into them, a downside is that each joystick can only control 1 servo (i.e. we would need 2 joysticks, each for controlling movement along 1 axis, instead of using 1 joystick to control movements along 2 axes. This was not ideal as our whole balloon requires 4 servos and it would be an absolute nightmare to control.

After consulting Tony, he recommended the use of a remote control. Once again, most remote controls found in the lab were old and broken and the ones that worked did not fit the purpose of our blimp entirely. On the bright side, it jump-started our considerations for a pre-programmed control system that would save us a lot of time (ie. we would not have to program a microprocessor such as Arduino to control the movements of our servos).

Lastly, we requested to start learning how to solder and de-solder as we were aware that we would likely need this skill as the project progresses on. We practiced repeatedly on a faulty circuit board by adding resistors into every hole we could find and then removing all of them.

 

 

Balloon-making begun this week and we only attempted an extremely small balloon due to limitations in our Mylar supply and unfamiliarity with using the iron. Although the 2 layers appeared to adhere well (tough to pull apart),  any inflation attempt through the small, intentional gap was a failure. It was probably due to the small Mylar size and uneven ironing along the edges that resulted in micro leaks.