Project management discrepencies

In the first few days of putting together this pre-PDR i have observed many problems in the structure and operation of the group. The first problem (and in my opinion the most important) that we encountered is that whenever we (the students) present something to our advisor he changes everything. He doesn't meet with us and discuss it as a group, he just makes revisions and leaves it at that. If I'm not mistaken the advisor and project manager meet and discuss changes, but other than that the rest of the group doesn't have much say so on the group decisions. Another problem is that Meetings are called at 8:30 in the morning and we aren't notified until 15 minutes before the meeting is supposed to be held. There doesn't seem to be much structure or order. I was under the impression that the advisor and project manager would assign task to be completed(that's whats in the contract) but this has happened only once in the 3 days of the project. Another problem that i feel is very important to get resolved is that, we as a group made a list of who would do what task(electronics, flight software, etc.), as a group we concurred and it was understood that the list was acceptable. When we met today the list of of task had been changed completely. I personally don't feel like the person over flight software should be over that task. I have observed in the programming activities that we have done that this person encounters difficulty with the simplest of programs. I will express my concerns as a group then to this individual but he has his mind made up that we know nothing and we can't tell him anything he doesn't already know.




p.s. I already have a program to write data to the EEPROM with a time stamp, and I have a separate program to read data from all or specific addresses in the EEPROM.

Weekend activities

Over the weekend i worked on the technical background and the science objectives for the pre-PDR. Today we met as a group and began actually putting the pre-PDR together. In doing this we encountered many problems. One of the problems was that some of our objectives and requirements didn't match up.

Prototype testing

Professor Jim had us test the insulation of our prototype boxes using 2 double A batteries and i resistor as a heat source. We recorded the temp inside the box using our hobo. I wasn't satisfied with the heat produced by the battery and resistor alone so I did a little experimenting of my own.

-Above is a picture of my setup. I have a 9 volt battery being shorted to produce heat(wire going from positive to negative), a 1.5 volt battery connected to an inductor(producing heat as well), and i have the same 2 lithium AA batteries connected to a resistor.

The previous set up of 2 double A batteries and resistor only produced 76 degrees Fahrenheit of heat. The set up in the picture above produced an excess of 95 degrees Fahrenheit. With this informatin we are able to get an idea of what it would take to keep our box nice and toasty :)

Payload box prototyping

Earlier on in the week we built our prototype payload boxes. To get an idea of how the construction and fabrication of our payload box is going to go, we built a prototype box. The box had to be able to fix inside both the vacuum chamber and the ice chest (for condition testing).

-To the right is a picture of our prototype payload box.

while building the box we had to double and triple measure to ensure that we didn't have deminsion complications (pieces don't match).

Project Management lecture

After lunch Professor Greg gave a lecture over Project management. Seeing as how our PDR is due on the 24 of June(next week) it is priority that we get together as a group and make this thing happen. In the lecture he laid out expectations, goals and the basic "life cycle" of a group (as he so eloquently put it). After the lecture we were given an activity to do, we were instructed to develop a mock project management contract. To do this we laid out the team leader, project manager, record keeper, and head researcher. Amongst other thing we also laid out rules, roles, expectation and a system of checks and balances. we will meet later on tonight to finalize our contract and mail it to Professor Greg in the morning.

morning lecture

This morning Professor Jim and Professor Greg gave a series of mini lectures on Payloads and flight expectations. In the lecture Professor Jim elaborated more on the flight element, and Professor Greg lectured the components of the payload. Jim shared several websites that could accurately calculate the trajectory and flight path of our balloon. EOSS provides most of the downloads for this software and it is free. Greg showed videos of different flights and wanted us to see how violently the payloads are shaken. he did this to show how important it is to build a solid payload.

mini trouble shooting guide for balloonsat BASIC stamp EEPROM writing

while programing and handling my balloonsat board i have come across a few programming issues. One of the first problems I came across was that i used syntax that BASIC stamp software doesn't recognize(MATLAB syntax). It is Vital that you use the proper syntax that is designated by BASIC stamp. Another problem i encountered was not staying consistent with variable names. Meaning if i name a variable Clk_call, i can't call it up using CLK_call. Another problem i ran into was that while trying to combine multiple programs, I would just copy variables and constants. The problem with this is that when combining multiple large programs many time if you aren't careful you run out of variable space. So be sure to check in your program to see what variable are being used and not used when combining components of multiple programs....... during the course of this summer i will compile and share all my bugs that i found while completing this program.

week two, friday afternoon lecture

After lunch Professor Jim gave a lecture on the Bench Power Supply. The first thing we learned that the bench power supply has a voltage range from 0-15V, load should be "a few hundred mA," and that the hold output be put within a few tenths of the voltage. Next he spoke on the Photovoltaic panel (solar panel) and their relevance in our flight payload. As long as the sun is shining the Photovoltaic panel can deliver enough energy to power our payload so this is a strong possibility. In addition we learned that each power cell produces .5 volts (approximately). A few of the concerns with this idea were that the payloads are going to be rotating, and the photovoltaic panel must be facing the sun. The next option was a Thermoelectric generator, this idea was improbable because the Seebeck effect (convert a temperature to energy) to power the generator. Finally we the simple battery was proposed as a possible power source. This idea is most efficient because it is inexpensive, reasonably lightweight, and it has a variety of voltages which we will need for our fligh payload.

pressure sensor activity

Yesterday we integrated a breadboard circuit into out baloonsat board to show that different censors can be added to the balloonsat and it still run. Today we took that same breadboard circuit and added a pressure sensor to it and measure the voltage at the specified points.By reading the voltage while tinkering with the pressure sensor we conclude that we conclude that pressure is directly related to voltage. So in essence we can determine the pressure by reading the voltages.

-below to the left is a picture of Ashle' Perry and Nedgby Marcelin(Albany State University students), signaling success while they put together the pressure sensor breadboard.

-above to the left is a picture of Ashle' Easley, D'Lonzo Taylor, and Professor Augustus Morris(Central State University) testing the pressure sensor with a hand pump.

june/6/2009 HAMM radio session

Last night at the 6:30 HAMM radio session we expanded our knowledge on series by building
and testing parallel series. first we built parallel series by hooking up two resistors in parallel and measured their there resistances together, then separate.

afterwards Dana pulled out an oscillo scope to show us how alternate current can be graphed and displayed.

-To the right is the oscillo scope and professor JIM is demonstrating the uses of the scope and the processes involved with reading it.

ADC time stamp and write to EEPROM

before lunch we finished (completely) our timestamp reading and writing program, we ran it, and I made sure to save it to both my flash drives. The program uses the ADC(analog-digital converter), the RTC (real-time-clock), and the Basic STAMP chip to write our (semi)basic flight program. first we used the program we wrote yesterday to write the ADC to get a conversion readout, next we used the clock stamp program from yesterday to get a ADC readout and a specified time. Finally we took a big chunk of the read and write to EEPROM program from two days ago and we put it ll together. change a few variables her, delete some constants there and voila we have a program that can record data(from analog to digital converter) at a specified(by user) time, and we write all that to our EEPROM. We're almost ready to fly!

-the picture on the bottom shows my program running, it displays the time we(user) entered, with the recorded value and it writes the data to the EEPROM(one byte at a time).

-the picture on top is our read EEPROM program(completely separate from the first program), what it is doing is reading every address(from 0-$1FFF) and displaying how it works.

NOTE- if u look at the pic on the bottom(timestamp write to EEPROM program) you'll see FF 13:27:09, these figure are being wrote ion to the EEPROM one at a time.

-now if u look at the picture on top you will see the numbers being displayed in a column, and that's our confirmation that our program functions properly.

time stamps

yesterday we learned how to integrate and program the Real Time Clock into our balloonsat circuit boards. today we are finishing up writing these time stamps (with reciorded value) to the EEPROM, then writing a program to read back the information form the EEPROM. After we have completed this, this will give us the make up for our flight program.

-above is a picture of ashey easley and dlonzo taylor (central state) working on writing their program for reading from the EEPROM.

june 5th baloonsat programming cont.

Continuing along from yesterday, today we worked on three specific areas of programming with the balloonsat module. First we worked on identifying the I/O Pin table using the balloonsat module. Next we wrote a program to turn the four LED lights on, then off, then to blink in series. Our final task for the balloonsat module was to introduce an external switch (circuit breaker) to the series and program the Led to to react the Switch.

-above is a video of the program running on our balloonsat module, if you look closely you will see that when i press the button the light flash one at a time. When not pressed down the lights remain off.

june 4 hamm lecture lol

this is what the face of hard work looks like!

compliments of EVAN!!!!!

formerly known as ashle

balloonsat module testing

Upon completing the balloonsat module we had to hook up the module to a power supply to check the voltages and resistances on several specific points on the module. To check the resistances of the balloonsat module we had to disconnect the module from the power supply, and connect the multi-meter to the specified checl points. To check the voltages of the ballonsat we had to reconnect the module to the power supply. Next we had to touch the multi-meter to the negative battery port on the module and the positive to the repective check point!
Fun right?!

Pacer day 4

hello world, we started day 4 off by completing the balloonsat circuit board that we started yesterday. The picture to the left is the compled balloonsat model. We were given a packet of chips, resistors, capacitors, etc. in which we put together the balloonsat. The balloonsat's main features are two EEPROM memory chips(1 read only, the other re-writable), and a BASIC stamp editor(for processing and running programs).

Pacer day 1 continued

So we just got back from lunch and according to the schedule we have a Introduction to Electronics session set up for us. I hope this is just be a basic intro to the physical aspect of electronics as far circuit, resistors etc. Hopefully This session will really just refresh my memory seeing as how I already took a basic electronics course in high school. There wasn't much emphasis on the theory or principles in the class i took, it was mainly building physical currents and calculating variables using ohm's law. Nevertheless that is better than nothing, I'll post after the session and let ya'll know how it went.

First day of PACER 2009!

Today was my first day in the PACER program. Aside from being overwhelmed by all the information that was given to us, I am actually still pretty excited about this experience. Also we created our first blog in our research blog series.

*sidenote*
-this is my first blog....ever!