Progress Report: Week of 12/18

Progress:

This week we focused primarily on integrating linux into our project. Linux is the operating system that the spiri drone runs on, so it is essential for the advancement of our project. So far we have figured out how to run linux on a mac computer. This can be done through a bootable usb drive. By putting the Linux disk image on a usb, we were able to boot directly from the drive by holding down the option key while the mac is starting up.  This has allowed us to work on mac computers instead of having to use the one linux computer that Elro has. Gui and Vasil watched many Gazebo tutorials on their website (http://gazebosim.org/tutorials).  Arianna Vetrano Sebastian worked on the container and tried to make it as light as possible by cutting out sections of the container that is not needed.  

Problems Solved:

Sebastian and Arianna solved the problem of how to make shave down the weight of the container so that we could increase the amount of things that could be carried during flight.

Lessons learned:

Arianna and Sebastian learned that we can make the container a bit lighter by adding holes to it since it is excess weight that really does not have any use.

Problems:

Connecting to wifi has been an issue for us because the schools wifi network is very difficult to connect to. Also, nothing on the linux computers are saved. This is because of the nature of the USB drive.

Drives must be configured to boot with persistence in order for basic files and inputs to be saved on the computer. We are still figuring out how to boot with persistence.

Plan:

Ben plans to download Linux onto a PC computer instead of using it on the Mac.  Gui and Vasil plan on continuing to learn Gazebo since that requires times and begin developing algorithms.  Arianna and Sebastian plans on printing out the cylindrical container and figuring out the more effect way of attaching it to the drone.  If we do not get a response from our correspondence by the time we get back to school, we will try calling them up.  We will need the Spiri as soon as possible.