College project got away from them.
 

I have a funny story that happened my last year of college.


At my college, some guys were making an autopilot for a model helicopter. The ultimate goal being that one could program the helicopter to fly where you wanted, and it would do so by itself. They had made a prototype gyro/gps unit for it, and were out in the field to try it out. The previous year, my friend and I had been responsible for the R/C models, because we have some experience. This year though, the guys didn't have any experience with R/C models at all. And now they were going to try to fly an R/C heli. They had been taught all the technical stuff, like how to start the thing, and one of the guys could fly airplanes in the simulator with chase view. So, they fill her up. Attach the glow booster. Mount up the starter, and let her rip. Engine turns, doesn't start. Try again, engine turns, engine starts. At this point the engine gives full throttle, the guys don't know what's going on, set the heli down. Being at full throttle, the rotor starts turning, and it starts turning fast. The heli lifts off the ground, sets a nice smooth course up and foreward, flies over the field over the trees, and is never seen again. They had indeed forgotten to turn on the power on the heli. Luckily for them, they hadn't attached their gyro/GPS unit yet. This was their degree project, so it would have been too funny if they had sent it flying 1 month before it was due! [sm=lol.gif] :D

RE: College project got away from them.
 

Was the program made to dodge obstacles such as trees, if so that would be pretty cool. I saw the segment on the history channel about the unmanned vehicles and there is some pretty hotsy totsy programming involved.

RE: College project got away from them.
 

Do you happen to know what kind of opperating system they used one there oneboard computer, possibly bsd.

RE: College project got away from them.
 

I don't have many details about their project. They had just a microcontroller with three gyro-chips for each axis, and a GPS module, and some memory to store output data. This was early in the whole project, so the goal was to record positions, and get the microcontroller to keep the heli in a stable hover.

RE: College project got away from them.
 

It appears that these guys forgot to use their checklist...

RE: College project got away from them.
 

It appears that these guys forgot to use their checklist...

It appears that these guys forgot to use their BRAINS!

Dr.1

RE: College project got away from them.
 

Good story....and a Welcome to R/C Universe....:D

I wonder how far it went ??? :eek:

Flyboy Dave.

RE: College project got away from them.
 

More importantly...i wonder what it destroyed when it stopped flying :)

RE: College project got away from them.
 

Thanks Dave!


The area it flew over was mostly forest, and there's also a small lake... so who knows where it ended up. It might still be hanging from the top of a tree.