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Launch

"My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."

-Abraham Lincoln

Just as things seem to be in working order, I leave those same things in pursuit of other opportunities. My Microscope Analysis Application has fully completed code documentation, and I've implemented the major features I wanted it to have, like displacement tracking, data outputs, filesystem parsing, an operation/queue system, and pausing/unpausing/exiting operations in progress. It is perhaps a great sign that I found implementing my last few major items into the application to be quite easy, owing to my previous work integrating everything in the application into a more accessible format for future additions. As a side note, I think I'm going to call this application MAAP (Microscope Analysis Automation Program).

On Monday, I went into the lab early in order to both implement one final application feature and also to give a small briefing to several UC Berkeley undergraduate students that wanted to work at the MEMS lab as part of an undergraduate summer internship. It has been pretty unfortunate that my usual parking for the past two weeks has been guarded closely by attendants charging exorbitant sums of money for UC Berkeley's ongoing graduation ceremonies. On Monday though, I was able to park in my usual spot. I walked down my usual hill to Cory Hall, proceeded up the stairs into the lab. I settled down into my guest location, and was able to finish implementing pausing/unpausing in around an hour, which is a very short period of time compared to previous code additions. While adding new code, I'm always looking for different ways that the new code will interact with the old code outside of the obvious ramifications. Often times, it is a matter of understanding the sequential nature of code, and realizing that some variables (which are just boxes for holding information), may not have the information that you want from them because they receive that information later on in the code. Sometimes, the box doesn't even exist, or it doesn't belong to the person you thought it did. I spend most of my time tracking down where the information I need actually is, kind of like a little kid trying tp follow several different cups being shuffled around, with only one of the cups holding something beneath it. This particular Monday, my virtual box filled garage was extremely neat and well described, so I had no problem finding my appropriate boxes. Now my code is feature-locked for good, so I will no longer be adding features to it. I'll leave that to the incoming undergraduates.

Speaking of which, the undergraduates were a no-show on Monday, so hopefully I'll be able to talk to them on Thursday. I didn't make it into the lab today, Tuesday, since I'm feeling quite under the weather. The past two weeks have been especially hectic since I've been putting in extra hours beyond my normal 9 hours per week at the lab.

Full footage of part of the quadcopter flight:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2gnawfwfsh5jtn7/full_drone_flight_vid.mp4?dl=0

This past Friday, I drove to Orinda's sports fields to give my quadcopter a test flight. I didn't have the drone perform any automated tasks (I will test those out soon), but I flew it around for a good while. I still need to conduct many more flight tests and battery life tests. To say the least, it was incredibly exhilarating to see the manifestation of something I've worked towards for so many months. It was pretty classic me to immediately, a few seconds after getting the system to work, take notes on different small issues with the flight. That being said, though on the outside I was cool, calm, and collected, on the inside, I was completely dumbfounded that most everything worked. Here is the full, unedited footage I don't know if I've accepted it, even now. It wouldn't really be like me to leave out all the different places I aspire to move towards now that my first major milestone has passed. I need to secure most of the items on the vehicle much more securely, at least with two sided mounting tape. The reaction of the quadcopter to my inputs was also quite jittery, and this is likely due to excessive frame vibration from the motors. I need to place a layer of vibration damping foam between the frame and the pixhawk. I may also attempt to get some FPV footage using a go-pro. I still need to decide whether I'm bringing the drone back with me to the east coast to tinker further with it, or whether to begin with phase two of my drone plans, designing a 3D printed frame, and implementing true flight controller feedback loops with my own code. These are my major goals going forward, especially as my third space now draws to a close within the week.

To my WISE Evaluators, thank you for reading my blog. It's been quite the long haul in my coding endeavors at my third space, and work outside of my third space has been richly rewarding, but also deeply challenging. I have enjoyed my time at Cory Hall, as it has taught me a lot about finishing a relatively complex project from start to finish, documentation and all. As always, I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to seeing you at my WISE presentation, and looking forward to the technological goals I have set ahead of me.


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