[Autosail] Action Items

[William Gibson]

Hello team!

For those who weren't able to make it to the meeting yesterday, I'm hoping
to help guide you into what is going on, so that you can start working as
soon as possible! Join us on Slack <http:///>! Meeting minutes are posted
there.

We have 11 weeks until race day (as of Saturday), and due to the *colossal*
amount of risk in this project, want to have construction of *hardware and
software* by the *five week mark*. That's *August 13th*.
I expect three weeks of hardware/software integration, leaving 3 weeks of
slack for optimization, race tactics, and for when our deadlines slip.

The philosophy I pushed at the meeting were: *simplicity first* and *low
risk*.
There are a billion cool things we can do with this platform - but it has
to *work,* before we go down the rabbit hole optimizing it. To minimize
risk, look at what is conventional - if 95% of model sailboats are a
certain way, there is probably a good reason.



Work is progressing on getting hull plans ready for laser cutting - perhaps
as early as next week, thanks to lots of effort by Norm and Mark L.

I am working on getting a version of Ardupilot set up with some empty
functions for the various software components that are to be constructed.

Lots of thought is going into the various sensors we must have, and would
like to have; the materials we can make the sails out of, etc.

Below is the exhaustive(-ish) list of action items, distilled from the
meeting minutes, as I see them. Some points may change based on the outcome
of others!

Thanks everyone - this is gonna be fun!
-Will


HAST *unassigned* action items

   -

   Think of names for boat and/or team (because HAST sucks)
   -

   Consider sources of funding? Self-fund, ads, sponsors..?
   -

   What camera can we use & works well with Ardupilot
   -

   Wireless connection to ground station - investigation
   -

   Drum vs Arm type of servo for rigging - investigation
   -

   Track down a canoe/kayak/inflatable and paddles we can use to rescue the
   boat
   -

   Bling! Definitely necessary. No flamethrowers though.


HAST action items

   -

   Keel casting (Mark V, Alan)
   -

   Wind Sensor (Alan, Norm, Mark L)
   -

   Hull
   -

      Plans (Norm, Mark V)
      -

      Laser cutting balsa (Will, ?)
      -

      Skeleton construction (everyone!!)
      -

      Skinning with balsa (everyone!!)
      -

      Fiberglassing (?)
      -

      Painting (?)
      -

      Waxing (?)
      -

      Rudder & servo (?)
      -

      Rigging & servo (?) [advanced!!]
      -

   Sails
   -

      Continue parallel investigation of wingsail and Bermuda rig (main +
      jib) sails (Mark L, ?)
      -

      Construct mast, boom, etc
      -

      Construct and grommet sail
      -

   Liase with RC sailboat group here in Toronto (Mark V)
   -

   Ardupilot
   -

      Determine which hardware we should get. Requirements are relatively
      lax – sailboats act much more slowly than a quadcopter.
      -

      Overall software (Will)
      -

      Sensor integration (?)
      -

      Camera integration (?)
      -

      PID Tuning (Will)
      -

      Testing (Rob)
      -

      Ground Station (?) - sets target waypoints, relays and displays
      sensors
      -

         Modify ardupilot ground station to plot ship's next planned
         waypoint(s) – coordinate with Navigator team. [optional]
         -

      “Navigator” (Will, Rob, Ravi) - computes sail-able waypoints to
      achieve target waypoints
      -

      “Helmsman” (?) - Steers boat to achieve next sail-able waypoint.
      -

         Should handle cross track error, course over ground, bearing,
         heading (XTE, COG, BRG, HDG, etc).
         -

      “Trimmer” (?) - Trims (sets) the sails, open loop control [LUT]
      -

         Investigate how we could close the loop on sail control – e.g.
         strain gauges on mast, force sensor on rigging. Not sure what
is required
         or sufficient. [advanced!! optional]
         -

   Procurements
   -

      Mast / spars
      -

      Rigging [fishing equipment]
      -

      Balsa, other wood (Emma)
      -

      Modelmaking supplies [T-pins, etc]
      -

      Fiberglass and epoxy
      -

      Paint [colours? Stencil for boat name, logo, etc?]
      -

      CA glue (Will, ?)
      -

      Servos
      -

      Ardupilot hardware
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