2023-08-17 EOT Meeting Minutes

Admin Notes

  • One more meeting @ start of next term (Sep 6)

Attendance

  • @Aaron Wang

  • @Aaditya Chaudhary

  • @Anthony Luo

  • @Aidan Bowers (Deactivated)

  • @Christopher Chung

  • @Conall Kingshott

  • @Daniel Puratich

  • @Ethan Abraham

  • @Megan Spee

  • @Alison Thompson

  • @Michael Botros

  • @Smile Khatri

  • @Ayoung Eun

  • @Mena Azab

  • @Nolan Haines

  • @Neha Srivastava

  • @Ryan Chan

  • @Taim Al-Dabbagh

  • @Thushanth Parameswaran

  • @Wingchee Wen (Deactivated)

  • @Nathan Green

  • @Ethan Woo

  • @Alison Thompson

  • @Mihir Gupta

  • @R D

Actual Meeting Minutes

Title. Use folders & Labels as necessary

  • End of each term, we can sell equipment to put cash (back) into our cash-box. 24 hours items are listed, FCFS and ig people can bid for it if they want? Maybe just a google sheets with a linked form and ppl can put in name/bid. idk.

  • Usually consider: broken, in need of repair, no longer used items.

  • Parts come with a written paper saying warg is not responsible for safety or damage to items…

Potential list of things we can sell off:

  • older / in a bad state ESC’s.

  • Broken/badly damaged video transmitters

  • ICARUS motors (vtol, we’ll likely not use them again for a while)

    • Try and hang onto. May build a VTOL in the future?

  • Older quad/hex motors (we can use them, but don’t really have the parts necessary to actually run them)

  • Large/random props

    • we do use these occasionally, but very rarely for warg purposes (usually thrust stand, most recently icarus) and it’s probably better just to sell them off instead of keeping them.

    • We should keep 10-14” props as well as the small props

  • Old ESC’s (T-motor ones)

    • these have failed a large number of times… I would not trust flying anything on them anymore

  • Old GPS stuff / A/v stuff / etc

    • idk do we ever use this?

  • Old 3d printer filament

    • the “USE PLEASE” ASA and the grimy looking transparent PVA?

In the past, we have sold:

  • receivers/transmitters

  • controllers

  • Confirmed. Most of our stuff in the downstairs bay right now, furniture and non-valuables outside.

  • Tomorrow morning will help VEXU move out, and then move in, inventory, sort, layout.

  • Bay code tracking, reset document, etc.

  • Need to talk to Teertstra about Cage shared with RI3D (can we continue to use it?)

    • Supposed to end this term. @Megan Spee (To talk to graeme)

@Anthony Luo @Megan Spee

  • Levels for each thing

    • a level, for example, unlocks some classes of aircraft? small (houston, phoenix, judie), up to icarus (discontinued lol but this would be the hardest…)

  • Confluence documentation for each level

  • online quiz + in person demo (for some) levels.

  • Will go from basic (no qualification) up to competition ready?

    • Final step from advanced → comp is HAM operator / advanced RPAS

  • The distinction between quadcopters and planes

  • Distinction for FPV (two? levels)

  • Who will be administring these tests? Will they have checklists?(Xierumeng)

    • Anybody higher level or two levels hiher can administer?

    • When taking a test, the test examiner? will ask you to demonstrate certain skills on a checklist.

    • Goal is not pilot ability/gcs ability, but safety & operation

  • Is it actual TC drone license? (Thushanth)

    • We’ll require basic for anybody (pilot) or (GCS).

    • Don’t need it if buddy boxing

  •  

Anything in this box please critique/discuss, comp selection processes should be scrutinized pretty hard so we can make it better

  • How many people, from which subteams, etc.

  • Looking at 14-16ish people? or 10-12?

    • this has definitely been discussed before. make a decision if possible

  • the ‘process for selecting competition-goers’ documentation should be made easily available start of fall term, with expectations outlined pretty clearly.

  • How to choose / limit people?

    • Self-nomination/interest form (self id, leads discretion)

    • Want people for each role? (need to clearly define what tasks exist and what needs to occur)

    • Rated on contribution - subteam leads decision may not be complete law.t

    • Either nominated by director, or someone else on a subteam.

    • Leads will likely know quickly yes/no for whether or not someone should go.

      • cutting down to meet #'s will be harder. Needs to be decision made as a team?

      • Probably easy if set nomination deadline, subteam leads come to meeting with shortlists, then decide

    • List of roles / stuff to do

      • Can find group of people to do a bunch of stuff isn’t of fitting people into pre-defined roles.

  • Competition Roster Selection Guide - Administration - WARG (atlassian.net)

  • @xierumeng to draft

  • @Conall Kingshott to draft

  • @Megan Spee to draft

  • Draft to review @ next leads meeting (before first day of school sep 6)

  • 4Mx4M space @ comp

Project Goal(s) for fall term

Objectives: Have entire competition architecture ready & tested. The earlier the better.

  • Comp drone (frame + wiring + duplicates / redundancy | Validation)

  • Antenna Tracker (software (tracking) + software (communication) + EE hardware (antennas) + EE Hardware (Nucleo breakout) + Mech hardware)

  • Landing pad detection & auto-landing (landing pad detection, geolocation, decision pipeline, mavlink communication - Jetson port still broken UART0 for debugging, UART1 not working)

  • Gemini (EE Hardware, Flashing ELRS Firmware, Communication with RX/TX modules.)

  • LTE (testing, validation)

  • Video Solutions (testing, validation)

  • Sensor Calibration/stackup

  • Path planning (Software + GCS Communication)

  •  

Availabilities: Who will be on-site next term? How often?

  • Autonomy: @Mihir Gupta @Amy Hu

  • Electrical: @Mena Azab @Nolan Haines @Nolan Haines

  • Embedded Flight Software: @Aaditya Chaudhary @Aaditya Chaudhary @Ayoung Eun@Christopher Chung

  • Mechanical: @Conall Kingshott smile/sohee co-op in person, nathan/alison/arjun partial availability

Meetings, Worksessions, Syncs, Workshops

Architecture meetings: When will these happen? How will they be scheduled?

  • As soon as conops comes out. Saturday & Sunday directly after release?

    • Lettucemeet for the weekend (friday eve. incl, monday eve incl.) day of conops release.

Project Syncs: Which project’s need syncs? Which ones need in-person cross-subteam work sessions?

  •  

Worksessions: We will have a bay downstairs, so much more realistic to have everyone coming in together! !

  • please come and use the bay, it looks good if we use it

Flight Tests

Scheduling: Aiming to have a flight test every other weekend?

  • Identify what airframes are available (Houston, Pegasus)

  • Identify tasks which need to be flight-tested.

    • need very detailed breakdown (# asana)

      • ensures these deadlines are met

      • other subteams are aware of these deadlines as well

      • schedule this around reading week, exams, etc. think ahead!

  • Identify how we can break those tasks down so that we bring incremental targets to each flight test.

  • Identify how we can run multiple tests in one flight-test.

  • Identify how we can minimize operator overloading for flight tests (e.g. start running auto-missions, operator only needs to know how to RTL, etc).

Auxiliary Projects

Projects not directly related to this competition season, but likely to be necessary if we want to continue to improve and compete at larger competitions.