[Autosail] Fwd: [hacklab-members] Autonomous Sailboat Race

[William Gibson]

Race is tentatively Saturday September 24th.
See below, from race organizer.
Let me know if this date doesn't work for you, and if there are enough
conflicts, we can request a reschedule.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Harvey <dharvey6 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 4, 2016 at 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: [hacklab-members] Autonomous Sailboat Race
To: William Gibson <william.gibson.wg at gmail.com>


I'm fine with the 1m size. For the course, what I had anticipated was
putting out 3 buoys (balls connected by chain to a cinder block). They'd be
set out in a triangle. Each team would get the GPS co-ordinates of each
buoy, and the boats would have to go around them. The navigation software
would have to set a margin of error for the GPS to make sure the boat goes
around (or maybe someone wants to be ambitious & build a vision system to
"see" the buoy?). My plan at the moment is to hold it at Bayfront Park in
Hamilton. There's a beach there, but it's closed to swimming because of
bacterial levels. It's pretty sheltered, so we shouldn't have to worry
about waves, which makes the 1m size doable. I've attached a satellite
image of the area with a possible course that's about 800m. As we test our
boats, we can assess what a reasonable course size will be and adjust
accordingly. Radio links shouldn't be an issue, as we'll have straight line
of sight over the water, and wouldn't ever be more than 1km from shore.

I'll have a small Zodiac type boat there for setting the course and for
retrieving any boats that go astray.

My tentative date is Saturday, September 24. The Maker Expo that Kwartzlab
is putting on is September 10, so that gives them 2 weeks to recover, then
hopefully come out at least to watch & come to the party afterwards. If
that date doesn't work for your team, let me know and we can look at
alternatives.

Dave



On Mon, Jul 4, 2016 at 2:37 PM, William Gibson <william.gibson.wg at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Awesome!
> I completely agree, it should be fun. If we manage to make something that
> can cross the finish line, I'll be impressed :p
>
> I think we could set a maximum size according to the U.S. 1m class - 1m
> long, 600 square inches of sail. Probably no need to set a minimum size.
> According to the internet, bigger is easier to build.
>
> As for the course - boat must have been close enough* of each of the
> waypoints specified on race day, as logged by the boat's internal GPS.
> *Close enough - I'd say within 3 meters, as calculated by
> http://williams.best.vwh.net/avform.htm#Dist
> That said, I don't think we need to check, but our software should use
> this as the decision criteria to move on to the next waypoint.
> This is better than the accuracy of the units we'll be using anyways - so
> they won't be quite the same spot on the earth, but who cares.
>
>
> Waypoints to be specified as a list of decimal lat and long, e.g.
> (52.4412396, -6.563223)
>
> The race should probably last 15-30 minutes - I'm not sure what speed we
> should expect. Probably 3-8kt, so 0.75-4nm. Split the difference and call
> it 4 kilometers? God that sounds ambitious.
> Maybe two races then - a short 'around the barrel and back' warmup, say
> 250m out and back. Then we can crank it up to full scale.
>
> We should also consider limiting the maximum distance from shore to ensure
> reliable communication with the ground station. Not sure what's reasonable.
>
> Will
>
> On Mon, Jul 4, 2016 at 2:06 PM, David Harvey <dharvey6 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I hope we'll get more, but I'll still do it if it's just the 2 of us.
>>
>> As for rules, etc. - I'm inclined to leave it pretty loose. It's meant to
>> be a fun event, not a serious competition, so I don't want to be overly
>> restrictive. However, if you have any thoughts on that, let me know.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 4, 2016 at 2:03 PM, William Gibson <
>> william.gibson.wg at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Dave,
>>>
>>> Last day for entrants... I hope we get some more competitors!
>>>
>>> Would you consider running the competition with just the two of our
>>> spaces, or would it not be worth your time?
>>>
>>> I think it would be still be a lot of fun, even if it was just
>>> hacklab.to and think|haus.
>>>
>>> Will
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 12:02 PM, Dave Harvey via Members <
>>> members at hacklab.to> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It's been a week since I sent my last email seeking expressions of
>>>> interest in an autonomous sailboat race to be held in Hamilton in September.
>>>>
>>>> I've received very little response: 1 person from Hacklab, 1 from
>>>> Site3, and a message from Diyode that they'd bring it up at their meeting
>>>> this week. No one has said that they'll definitely participate.
>>>>
>>>> If we're going to do this, we need to know soon. Please try to give me
>>>> an In or Out decision by Monday, July 4.
>>>>
>>>> Even if you're not interested, I'd appreciate your feedback on the
>>>> idea. Are you not interested because:
>>>>
>>>> 1. It's too hard to wrangle a team during the summer;
>>>> 2. The project seems too difficult for the time available;
>>>> 3. The project is just not the kind of thing our people are interested
>>>> in;
>>>> 4. We have too many other projects on the go right now;
>>>> 5. We're a sad little group that never does anything fun;
>>>> 6. Other
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Dave
>>>> think|haus
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Members mailing list
>>>> Members at hacklab.to
>>>> https://lists.hacklab.to/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/members
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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