Whenever we do a flight day, we try and have at least one student taking photos and documenting the process. Here are some Folsom Lake College students at our most recent BAP field day doing science – taking GPS coordinates, … Continue reading
Field day with Jason Pittman’s (Geosciences) class yesterday. The balloon pulled well, I think thanks in part to the weight reductions we achieved with the new 3D printed picavet part. Full dataset here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1HizVK87qvsS3kxX3A4OGM4WFU&usp=sharing … Continue reading
Did a quick SketchUp model of a picavet and printed it for a BAP day on Wednesday. Much lighter than the setup it replaced. When I have a little more time, I’ll look into replacing all the metal parts with … Continue reading
Following a successful field day with students, the balloon had enough spirit to pull the iPhone up over the site of FLC’s new experimental garden. It may not look like much now, but there are plans for additional planter boxes, … Continue reading
Kite? Check. Helium? Check. It takes quite a bit of gear to execute a proper field day. Professor Jason Pittman arranged a KAP/BAP field day, and we headed up to the wetlands on the north end of campus to meet … Continue reading
We got some new GoPro Hero 4 cameras for the project, and as usual, the cameras don’t include a lens cap. Downloaded one from Thingiverse and printed out a few. Still working out some printing issues, but they printed well … Continue reading
We’ve had some success using the iPhone for aerial imaging from kites, balloons, and quads, so I’ve been looking for a way to mount one to our new Phantom’s GoPro mounting base plate. A quick search of http://thingiverse.com returned this … Continue reading
The new quadcopter arrived, and it flies like a dream right out of the box. We’ve been looking for a stable, predictable (some would say boring) flyer, and this machine seems to fit the bill. Excited to put it through … Continue reading
Thanks to the very responsive team at Publiclab.org – Stewart, Jeff and Liz! – MapKnitter is back up and running exports. Here’s a before and after version of one student’s work with the balloon photos: Overall, a fine result, but … Continue reading
Here’s a screenshot of one of the many photo composites that students are working on with the data gathered from the balloon flight a couple of weeks ago: MapKnitter is being finicky about exports, but hopefully that will resolve itself … Continue reading