Sure. I think I’m free that day. Just gotta wake up early-ish :\
Went ahead and signed your spreadsheet.
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Would we do direct control or something like Ardupilot? I have at least one GPS unit and accelerometer I can donate to the build:
I should have at least 1 10dof accelerometer we could use too.
We could go either way! I have experience with ardupilot and have some hardware also. Just depends on how much work we want to put in. 
I think if we make it to the glider it would be pretty awesome to code it up to be able to do some autonomous action maybe even search for thermals and grab lift 
in order to achieve the loiter mission.
All of this is possible but I fear we may be stepping outside the scope of this project. I am trying to keep these builds on the simple side as I don’t expect these planes to have more than one or two days of flight before we will be repairing/rebuilding.
If we end up loading the plane up to be autonomous and have many hours of flight, I’d suggest we build it out of something better than DTFB (I’m hesitant to put $400 worth of electronics into $10 of foam board that will have a shelf life of about 30 days). But that means we are building a more expensive airframe (DTFB is the most economical building material) which puts us right back to scouring for funding to start the project.
If we stick to simpler planes, and expect to crash them, it brings in a lot of pros:
-instead of being a single project, it is more of an ongoing program, that could blossom into a series of classes, to teach people how to build/fly/fix planes with very little investment (this will help draw more activity into our committee, giving us more freedom with future funding/projects)
-When we crash (the idea is to get everyone on the sticks at some point, so this is GOING to happen) it will not be as upsetting for people who are not used to crashing planes (people are not used to the sense of loss of 4 hours of work vs loss of 20 hrs of work and can be a deathblow to the motivation of newcomers)
-This way we get to teach repair techniques as well as construction techniques
-Adds a lot more variety to the planes being built (you learn a lot more by building two different airplanes, than by building the same plane 20 times)
LOL, I will come out and say I dislike crashing, but I realize that it is likely. I am totally on board, please disregard my dreaming
LOL we aren’t exactly TRYING to crash it, but when you have new pilots, the chances of a rapid unplanned disassembly become a near certainty! 
That being said, if you are interested in autonomous stuff, jump in on our HAB project. It’s pretty much funded already, has a lot of those skill sets, and incorporates FPV 
So after the meeting yesterday it seems that most people are interested in a more complicated build (Autonomy and such). To that end I’d like to propose we get a list together of what hardware people are prepared to donate. Also we should start a weekly meeting. Saturday mornings seem okay for a few of us, maybe try a little later in the morning? Say 11 o’clock?
Sorry I missed the meeting on Saturday, sigh, I had every intention to come out. Best laid plans of mice and men, remembered about noon that it was on that Saturday.
When I used to hang out with Romeo more often we came up with the rule that you spend 30 minutes in the simulator BEFORE you fly, EVERY TIME, because we were both newer and wanted to avoid the controlled-flight-into-terrain events that you get less of when you’ve crashed 5 times before you hit the field.
The other rule I learned was “never be in a rush”, which is to say that if you are wondering whether you’ll have enough time, you don’t have enough time.
Maybe more experienced folks can do with more loose procedures, but we learned that we were not experienced and could not expect to do well unless things were just so.
Time sounds fairly good. Although recall we’re doing the combo thing on the 22nd and probably other balloon meetings on Sat as well, so we might need to coordinate the two projects around each other.
Also recall that for as long as we don’t lose the HAB drone, it has some committee-owned hardware that can be borrowed (not forever), like an ArduPilot and some decent radio gear.
I don’t plan to Frankenstein anything out of the HAB. Anything that would be useful to steal from it, I have extras laying around. Some really keen donations would be a like large brushless motors, esc, batteries, gimbals, cameras, transmitters/recievers.
This also brings up the next deciding factor. What building material do we want to work in? And what type of construction? Do we want to try and print it? Laser cut some formers and skin it? Solid foam?
Printing offers the easiest replacement parts, but likely the poorest performance due to weight, laser cut parts are usually the most consistent and accurate parts, but covering large areas is a P.I.T.A., solid foam is hard to make symmetrical and consistent, but has the highest durability.
Let me know what y’all thnk!
What’s the scope of the project? Months and hyper-engineered, or just chuck things into the sky in a week?
Are we targeting a particular mission, i.e. trainer, cargo / load-carrying, speed?
I want to answer these before the materials question. There’s always creative ways around limitations if you’ve got the time and inclination. Also, I do have a roll of carbon fabric + resin I could put towards stuff if it’s not too excessive. And the way you design things might lead to a natural choice of a variety of materials instead of just one (e.g. foam for most of the fuselage, balsa for wings, composite for wing spar).
What committee funds are available to devote to projects and equipment?
Edit: when I get back to the space I can post my strange idea I CADed up on Saturday.
So far mapping seems to be the primary desire. Scope is really up to you guys and what we can wrangle in donations. I’d love to do a laser cut balsa build, but that can get expensive really fast. I think we could easily get some practice with the basics building something like the FT Explorer and giving it a few missions while we pour some real effort into an engineered air frame to carry out longer missions and carrying payloads etc.
As for funds, we have no funds. Still waiting to officially be announced chair to do the account stuff.
BUT! I personally have a Pixhawk, GPS, a few batteries (depending on size we need), a handful of motors (Again, depending on what size we need), ESC’s (…[broken record noises]…), servos, props, recievers, VTX’s, transmitters, cameras, ground screens, goggles, and various construction odds and ends (like carbon rod/tube/sheet, servo connectors, wheels, springs, etc). If we can get a decent amount of the parts donated, and I am able to, I would be willing to fill out the rest of the aircraft from my personal stock.
Just depends on what people can come up with! Some of the things that I DON’T have in my personal store that will likely NEED to be donated are: Primary construction material (unless it’s DTFB, I got mountains of that), expanding adhesive for primary material (ie: gorilla glue for foam), contracting adhesive for primary material (ie: E6000 for foam), landing gear (the wheels more-so than the struts – those we can likely print), long/large support materials (like a wing spar – I have a fair amount of suitable materials but likely not enough for bigger supports), and any specialty tools/jigs needed for construction.
The things I’m most readily willing to let go of are 1 of my pixhawks, a Boscam VTX, 5100mAh 3-cell Li-Po’s (I have 6, and almost never use them anymore), and servos (I buy them in bulk for personal use already so a few gone missing is practically unnoticeable)
There is no need to wait for that. Our books are open to any member, no ‘official’ position nescessary. If you don’t currently have Quick books online (read only) access you can grab @Photomancer anytime he is there and he can give it to you. And if you ask him nicely he will probably run the numbers and tell you what Aerospace has in its ‘account’.
As of the Mar 19 board meeting Aerospace R/C has $406.74 https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors_Meeting_20170319
Thanks for the info – great to know!
In that case, I need to tally up what HAB still needs to finish, then I can figure out what we have to work with for this project.
@Millioncorn PM your name and email and I’ll send you the invite QBO. If anyone else would like Read Only access, please do the same.
If you are someone that doesn’t have a Talk account, but just reads it, send a letter to:
Dallas Makerspace: Attn Finance Committee
1825 #104 Monetary
Carrollton, TX 75006
Just state you’d like read access to Quickbooks Online (QBO). Include name and email (QBO needs info to send information).
You’ll get an invite from QBO to set up your account.
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After some very rough estimations, I’d say we have about $50 to work with on this project – roughly $400 total, roughly $200 to finish HAB, roughly $100 for a safety net, and, ideally, I’d like to have a project (expense) and a class (profit) going at any given time, so divide the rest by two (400-200-100)/2 = 50
That being said, we should probably use it last to fill in missing components after all donations are inventoried.