It’s Alive!!!

Yesterday was the first day that LUARI completed the entire mission autonomously! We still had some trouble with new sprockets for the chain drive that we installed. But after pausing the mission, fiddling with the gears and chain, the mission resumed and LUARI continued on.

Anaglyph stereo image (red-cyan glasses) of a field work station with 3 chairs, a large umbrella, some assorted tools scattered about with a robot constructed out of used bicycle parts and aluminum uni-strut carrying multiple cameras, and fitted with 2 GPS units, a wifi router and many, many cables. This is against a background of canola, with wheat in the distance. — 3D anaglyph image of LUARI. See below for ‘flat’ image.

A field work station with 3 chairs, a large umbrella, some assorted tools scattered about, with a robot constructed out of used bicycle parts and aluminum uni-strut carrying multiple cameras, and fitted with 2 GPS units, a wifi router and many, many cables. This is against a background of canola, with wheat in the distance.

I’m back in my basement shop today drilling and tapping some holes for additional set screws that will hopefully keep the sprockets from working their way off the motor shafts.

Drill press showing a drill bit just above an aluminum disk held in a vise. Out of focus junk in the background. — Preparing to drill set screw hole

After playing with the robot we revisited this cornfield to fly the drone. An undergrad student is currently conducting an experiment seeding cover crops at different stages after the corn has emerged. There was very little rain after seeding the cover crops so we’re not sure if our imagery will detect any difference from the control plot. To be determined…

An anaglyph image looking out over the top of a large field of corn. There are stands of trees surrounding the fields with the Nor'Wester mountains in the distance. — Cornfield and Nor’Wester Mountains.