117 replies to this topic

[SpleenBeGone]

Wow that's cool, shame you can't rig it up with a little camera for some sort of twitch.tv live feed or something. I know we talked about that ages ago and it was out of the question but it would be neat haha.

Yeah, I'd need a satellite data feed of some sort. I think that would put me way over budget. >.>

[Calvary]

What if you ask NASA really nicely?

[Calvary]

Or make your own satellite out of tin cans and foil.

[SpleenBeGone]

The Pirate Bay might actually be a better chance. >.>

[SpleenBeGone]

So I was thinking on this more today, and how to do the logic needed to navigate

 

I was thinking if target lat/long - current lat/long = 5mi, the move to next target location. I've come up with my fir hurdle though, decimal degrees are weird fucking numbers. 0.1 degree latitude is 36,432ft. 0.1 degree longitude is 22176 feet. For our non americans, it's also an absurd number in metric as well. 11.104474 and 6.7592448 kilometers. Fuck you earth, for not dividing up into nice, neat numbers. 

 

As I'm typing this I realize that negative and positive numbers are used to represent different sides of the prime meridian and equator, so I'm not entirely sure how to make that work either.

 

Fuck this shit is complicated for something that should be simple. 

[Calvary]

Stick go pro into bottle

Attach solar panel to go pro

???

Profit

[SpleenBeGone]

That might work. 

[SpleenBeGone]

So, what could I do with 9.5 minutes of motor usage per hour? That should be enough to course correct. I wonder how fast I'd be able to move the boat in that time, but I haven't figure out a way to math that, so I'll just have to test it.

[SpleenBeGone]

Haversine
formula: a = sin²(Δφ/2) + cos φ1 ⋅ cos φ2 ⋅ sin²(Δλ/2)
c = 2 ⋅ atan2( √a, √(1−a) )
d = R ⋅ c where φ is latitude, λ is longitude, R is earth’s radius (mean radius = 6,371km);
note that angles need to be in radians to pass to trig functions!

http://www.movable-t...ts/latlong.html

 

I fucking love the internet.

 

So navigation may be solved. (mostly)

 

Using my new friend Haversine, I can get the degree bearing between two gps points. Using current location and the next waypoint location I can get the angle I need to go. The gps chip's functions allow me to get the current bearing. 

 

So, if target bearing > current bearing< 180 run the left motor until target bearing=current bearing

If target bearing < current bearing >180 run right motor until target bearing=current bearing

 

 

Fuck. Yes.

[SpleenBeGone]

Catamaran, anyone?

http://www.amazon.co...ds=rc catamaran

[Big_T]

For one of these 

 

Do you sail?

I should read back to get some context here .... (facepalm)

 

Yeah, I'd need a satellite data feed of some sort. I think that would put me way over budget. >.>

Or drones?

[SpleenBeGone]

I don't sail, no. I wouldn't use a sail, as there would be a big ass solar panel that takes up pretty much the entire top. I'm just thinking that would be a good hull system for this. 

 

Also, flying a drone across an ocean is a whole different set of issues that I'm not equipped to handle. 

[SpleenBeGone]

I'm looking at some geared motors that are rated at 400mA@1500rpm. Provided that's enough speed (And i think it would be) this would be a much more efficient way to go over the power wheels motors I originally had planned. Using these motors would let me run them for about 20 hours a day. 

[SpleenBeGone]

Looks like someone is trying to do this.

 

http://globalnews.ca...p/?sf29498460=1

[SpleenBeGone]

http://www.solar-voyager.com/

[Calvary]

Don't let them beat you to it Spleen!!

[SpleenBeGone]

Well they appear to still be tangled up, so I don't think they will. 

[SpleenBeGone]

Posting this for later.

https://sites.google...gating-with-gps