New academic year == new projects

Another year of Uni has now begun, with the promise of a number of awesome projects to work on. This is not to say that the current work is going to be dropped, the Blake project in particular is continuing with the deadline of being complete by June next year.

However, the excitement always lies with the shiny new projects with all of the potential and none of the pragmatism (yet):

Being on the committee for the university's space society has meant that I was hoping to be able to push some electronics into the normal roster of rocket and rover projects. This push has resulted in the Solar Flare Detector being adopted as a project for this year. Consisting of a VLF radio receiver the end product will be able to track the sudden ionospheric disturbances that usually accompany flares hitting the Earth. Before you go and talk about us heading towards a solar minimum at the moment, which we are, there are still flares to be detected - just slightly smaller and less frequent flares. This project is currently starting up and already providing interest in the society from a broader range of subject disciplines, beyond the usual Aerospace Engineers.

The society is also re-entering the UKSEDS lunar rover competition after our successes last year (we came second), hoping to build on our design which ended up being decidedly improvised towards the end. It is likely the electronics are going to get a major overhaul but this should not be too hard given we now have experience.

Finally (for the moment) being the third year of the degree part of the assessment this year involves a group project. The aim of this project will be to produce a machine capable of solving a Rubik's cube. There are several restrictions that are going to add cool (and not obvious) electronics - I am sure that these will turn up in a future post.

Ongoing projects include the brilliant Blake Project, now cruising to completion - some sneakery is going to allow the accelerometer problem to be sidestepped, again I am sure that this will be written about somewhere else. The track itself is also slowly being completed - the workshop restocked perspex for the new term, and I immediately helped myself and spent a happy couple of hours producing all the parts needed.

At an even slower pace is the telescope, dredged from the depths of the blog. While I have really enjoyed using it so far there have been certain areas that either need improving or have already been improved. The mount (both tripod and pivot) have both been replaced with far more capable, but sadly not quite as DIY-y, elements. My range of eyepieces has also increased beyond a single dodgy 7.5mm plossl. Using the new setup I can clearly see all four stars in Mizar/Alcor, some awesome detail on the moon, the rings of Saturn e.c.t. However there is still more to do, I would like to 3D print an eyepiece holder and at some point I am going to need to replace the current optical tube frame.

All good things to look forward to, an hopefully write about!

A Summary:

Ongoing Projects:

1. Blake Project (at a slower speed during the academic year)
2. Telescope (gradually improving portability and stability)

New Projects:

1. Solar Flare Detector (cooler acronym incoming)
2. Rubik's Cube Solver (for degree)
3. Lunar Rover Mk. 2.