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Attendance

Not Attending

key people who aren’t here

Mechanical

  • Weight Concerns

    • Evan

      • Just under 4 kg (~3.8 kg including batteries off the top of my head) without the empennage, rear landing gear, and all electronics (servos etc)

      • It is possible to shave some weight off the airframe by shrinking the size of the plates down as the bottom one is not only being used for batteries

        • Just need some extra space to move batteries to properly align center of gravity at 1/3 of the airfoil

      • If weight becomes major issues, can remove one battery until other weight saving efforts could be made

        • make POR be one battery

        • can redesign fuselage around this

image-20241006-153255.png

  • Wing Manufacturing Concerns

    • Evan

      • Depending on challenge of manufacturing the wings

        • crashes could be very detrimental in having to do repairs

        • time consuming process

      • Will learn more about MonoKote as we use it more, which will give us a greater understanding of the positives and negatives of this method

      • WatArrow already did a lot of the trial and error and shifted to foam and carbon fiber tube

      • If we aren’t able to successfully manufacture the wings using current method, do we want a backup option that could be done?

        • Nathaniel’s thoughts:

          • Having a backup in mind is good, lots to choose from like fabric and foam board so we’d continue using the same ribs

            • Oratex is a fabric with adhesive (apply similarly to MonoKote) but doesn’t shrink as much so manufacturing might be easier

    • Nathaniel

      • Emailed wat arrow to borrow their iron, i believe it is in the bay now but haven’t gotten a chance to go and take a look

        • Keep this in the back shelf against wall right shelf bottom right corner next to / behind the power supplies

        • Trial (after midterms?) using 3 ribs → Do in bay

  • Wing design

    • Nathaniel

      • Ailerons

        • 2 designs I will be reviewing

      • LE and TE covers

        • 3d prints will most likely melt when applying MonoKote, looking into a balsa piece instead

      • Tasks for spar weight saving, GPS mounting and pitot tube mounting at mech meeting

  • Empennage

    image-20241009-234107.png

    • Horizontal stabilizer done. Vertical stabilizer and elevator in progress.

    • Designing a ‘junction’ to which the HT and VT will attach to. 2 dowel rods for each HT and VT.

    • May need to revisit thoughts on a steerable rear wheel

      • Joshua (watarrow lead) said steerable rear wheel is kind of troll because when a tail dragger reaches high speeds on the ground, the tail lifts up a little due to lift generated in the wings

        • I believe he said they are going to try to make the front landing gear steerable

      • this means rear wheel will not be in contact w/ the ground, rendering a controllable rear wheel useless. If this is the case then it’s probably not worth the effort to make a steerable landing gear

        • daniel

          • steerable gear is only for low speed when the rudder isn’t effective

      • Keep it steerable for now.

  • Final mech designed review to be conducted on November 2, 2024 before manufacturing starts

    • Either the 2nd or 9th but planning for the 2nd.

  • Look into compass on the V.T.

    • same for servo module mounting in the tail

    • think about the wire runs

Avionics

  • Required Boards

    • 6S Servo Module Status

      • making new rev for midterm board order

      • Rev 1 does not work due to buck design issues

      • unable to validate PWR and firmware

      • EFS reviewed pinout, will implement changes on Rev 2

      • November 1st trying to order

      • check with firmware to check everything

      • will give us an assembled board maybe on December sixth

    • Single Servo Driver Status

  • Optional Boards Status

    • 6S Power Module

      • not yet assembled

      • Not priority, new revs on midterm order for tracking antenna first.

      • Likely making as we wait for midterm board order to come

    • Redundant Pixhawk Power Supply

      • Almost done routing, getting eyes on it from Kevin, full review soon

      • On track for midterm board order (Tentative Nov 1)

      • Will have to wait for midterm boards to come and then assemble, since not first priority on that order will likely not made soon.

  • Firmware Status

    • Have we successfully flashed things with AP_PERIPH?

      • not yet but seems like path forward

    • Will the eclipse boards be faced with the PB0 challenges as well?

      • Firmware needs to request changes now if they’re needed.

      • EFS leads should follow up on this

Timeline

  • Are we doing a copper bird as a way to pre-emptively start on wiring and Pixhawk Configuration?

    • to test the new sensors and new CAN hardware will be nice

    • all the other power stuff we already know

    • early into next term seems ready

  • Are we too busy with competition stuff to continue the current eclipse timelines?

    • Review what I have in Asana.

    • Stick with current timelines

  • Manufacturing and ground testing timeline thoughts?

    • On track

    • need to see how much manufacturing we’ll get done in November

Piloting

  • Need to select a pilot and start training regiment

    • Simulator time initially

    • foam planes with no autopilot that work well should be built

    • practice line of sight flying mostly

    • Daniel Puratich has de-assigned pilot for maiden role because POR seems to be maiden flight during W25 when I will be offsite.

    • Manasva Katyal put forward by Hardy

      • was an FTC

      • actual fixed wing pilot

      • Daniel Puratich to approach about training and availability

      • likely to be here next term

    • Jerry Tian interested

      • will be here next term

  • what do we want to do with the fixed wing before comp 2025?

    • Maybe a bit early to be asking the question, but I guess if we're pushing to get maiden done is the reason just to ensure we can all focus on peggy 2 leading up to comp or is it because we wanna try to make more changes and improvements on it before vtol stuff?

    • before maiden

      • setting up ardupilot and sensors should be done fully before maiden

      • EE boards and EFS firmware

    • maiden

      • collect data on airfoil on the maiden

    • post maiden

      • could try the autonomy system in prep for comp 2026

  • I am really hoping with the fixed wing we can discover most of the problems/challenges with it just being on the ground.

    • Airfoil will be the big one we cant test on the ground i guess eh?

      • same w/ airspeed, range

    • Maiden flight should prolly include an autotune imo.

    • Integrating autonomy system is the long term path but not maiden

    • All electronics are for sure ground testable (hence me pushing for a copper bird type setup now).

      • The strapdown test will be nice here to prove out the power train

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