Worked on getting used to the drones and coding
Attempting to get better with the coding system, we attempted to successfully finish the figure eight. It proved challenging to change something in a manner that wouldn't affect the rest of the code, but we got the hang of it at some point.
The figure 8 movement was quite unstable, so we decided to trifle with the measurmements. What we had by the end of the meeting was not perfect, but most definitely better.
We perfected the first half of the code by working little imperfections that had previously thrown it really off. The end of the the year was admantly slower when it came to progressing due to the fact that we had acquired a large amount of progression and even the slightest changes affected the whole course.
Beginning the second half of the code, we noticed lots of small imperfections that, bit by bit, had ruined tha path in the long run. These little mistakes were fixed during this session. Oddly enough, we observed the drone repeatdly bumping into obstcles even after we made only minor changes. This may have been the reason why we struggled to make it past.
While testing the run, we noticed that our drone had troubles with going up and down, so we tried many things to pinpoint the bottleneck. We first tried to pilot it, but the problem wasn't there. Then we checked the code and didn't see any problems. In the end, it turned out to be caused by an update that we didn't notice. We practiced the team excercise with another team, made some changes to the path our drone takes on figure 8, and connected the drone to Blockly. This took time and troubleshooting because the drone was updated to the latest version, but Blockly wasn't. Eventually, through synchronized teamwork, we solved the problem.
Held back with drone complications, it took us a while to get back on track and continue coding. Our vehicle kept sinking and wouldn't connect properly.
Upon opening the computer, the code seemed to have disappeared. After a while of messing around, we were able to access it as the python version. We tinkered with measurments for precision.
For the manual flying, we planned out how we would want to maneuver our drone, where everyone would stand, and how much time we should use for each section. We went through a practice run which did not make the time, but it gave us an idea of how to improve.
Today, we all timed our abilities to control the drone to knock the bean bags off the stands. To do this, one team member would set a running timer while another would fly the drone and knock the bean bags off to a specific side(green or blue). The 3rd team member would give the goal color as green or blue and the current pilot would attempted to knock the bean bag to that specific side.
Today, instead of the teamwork course, we opted to do the piloting skills course. Srinika and Ermina were not present today ,therefore, Anaya filled in. We timed ourselves for 60 seconds and surprisingly Ayleen timed with 39 and 52 seconds while Anaya had a good 42 seconds. We realized that we would likely have enough time to get some more points with maybe doing some more figure eights.
We decreased our flight time by manuvering the drone in a more efficient manner. The pilots made sure that the drone had a good stop and plenty of extra time even after the course is completed.
We were able to swiftly complete the bean bag section of the the Teamwork Mission within around a minute. Although we utilized most of the time, we will be able to divide it within the team that we will be working with at the competition. We practiced doing the visual observer section to the landing part in an attempt to get our time to a maximum of 40 seconds in that area. Unfortunately, we slightly struggled blindly flying the drone and having communication between the pilot and the visual observer. We tried to fix this problem by having the pilot see the drone in action during the blind fly so that the pilot can have a visual map. Tomorrow, we plan on attempting to work on the blind section of the course to successfully complete it.
We continued to work on the Teamwork mission as we believed that it was the mission that needed the most work. We were able to in fact prctice with another team which definitely made us feel more confident about this mission. We concluded that our best pro was the bean bags and our con on this mission is moving the wiffle balls blind, which we discovered was generally caused by drifting. We found several strategies to attempt to improve this flaw. For example, visualizing what we were doing in order for the pilot to see how bad the drifting was. Once we firmly established the issue, we devised a plan so that when the visual observer tells the pilot to go to the right, the pilot moves the drone slightly to the right and lets the drifting do most of the work. This in fact helped because even without the drift, going slow makes everything more precise.
Today, instead of focusing only on working on the Teamwork mission ourselves, we try to run the timer with another team to attempt under 90 seconds. This gave us an idea of how the real competition would be and allowed us to improve our skills of communication with the team that will be working with us. We rotated roles between getting the balls in the designated area and moving the beanbags off of the stands. This allowed us to be prepared for the other team incase they are more experienced in a different area, so we could accomodate and work with them.
Today, we only worked on pilot skills and blind fly. On blind fly, we were able to move the wiffleballs, but drifting is still and apparent problem. Since the competition is tomorrow, there's not much we could do other than continuously trim it. Other than that, we have definitely improved. For pilot skills, the pilot(Ayleen) flew through the course while timed several times. Her best time was 48 seconds, with extra figure eights and her worse (within 60 seconds) was 59.8 seconds. Unfortunately, drifting is again a problem! It was planned by Ermina and Ayleen for Ayleen to run through the course then go back and do 2 more figure eights, so three. Drifting made this harder, but fortunately not impossible. We planned to if in a worse case scenario, Ayleen will not aim for 3 figure eights and will focus on landing to try and gain more points from small cube landing. Other than these couple of problems, we feel ready for the competion tomorrow.