Friday, October 31, 2014

All Hallows Eve


This Wednesday, Josh Garcia showed up to show off his quadcopter with FPV. It was pretty sweet and we got to see how well it handled and the quality of video available with the GoPro Hero 3+, the camera we are planning to use. With proof that the video from that camera is of good quality, we are thinking about using that as a basis for a new senior project. We are going to propose that we use the hexacopter that we are building for aerial photography. If we get it approved, we will most likely abandon our previous senior project or perhaps leave it to the next generation of seniors. Happy Halloween everyone!

Monday, October 27, 2014

Looking Into Other Options

With our efforts currently producing no results, our motorcycle project has stalled out. We are going to focus on our new hexacopter for the next couple of weeks and see about turning it into our new senior project. We have ordered the parts that we will use to build our hexacopter. These parts will be coming within the next week and we are excited to see them arrive. The funds were provided by the Solar Knights Racing Team and the hexacopter will stay under their possesion. We will also have an alumni of the engineering program stop by to show off his DJI Phantom 2 and explain a little bit about the multirotor hobby.

Friday, October 24, 2014

On Hold

Our motorcycle project is currently on hold while we are tasked with a new project. We've been tasked with making a hexacopter for the Solar Knights racing team to take aerial pictures of the car while driving. We will continue with our original project if and when we get the necessary funding, be it from sponsors, selling our electric car, or through fundraising. For now, we will be updating with the status of our hexacopter project which may end up becoming our senior project.
Tarot T960 Hexa-Copter Carbon Kit (US Warehouse)
This is the frame we are planning on using.

Monday, October 20, 2014

A Little Behind

With progress on our project relying on funds and us having no funds right now, the project is on a hiatus. We will have to just keep trying and have a little faith in humanity that someone will see the light in our project and help to fund it. For the rest of this week, we will send out more emails and continue contacting any people we feel could have an impact in any way on our project. On a positive note, many of our fellow students are beginning development of their senior projects and are having much better luck than we have had.

Another senior project in progress

Friday, October 17, 2014

Dire Straights



We still have no sponsors and have started to think of a "Plan B". We are currently looking into selling the old electric car we have in our tech lab for funding. Without any sponsors or money from selling the car, we will have to go with whatever "Plan B" we come up with. We have done some research and posted around a few forums. The general consensus is that from selling the electric car conversion we will be able to raise enough money to fund our entire project.

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Chevy Geo Electric Conversion

Monday, October 13, 2014

Remember, Remember the First of November



We still have no sponsors and it has been barely over a week since we sent out the initial sponsorship letters. As always, we are hopeful that our work will come to fruition and we will have companies lining up to sponsor us come Friday. We have looked into a few other models of motorcycle since last week and have come to the decision that the Honda Pacific Coast will be the motorcycle we buy if it is available. With November coming up quick, we may have to start thinking of an alternate project.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Looking Grim

     No sponsors have contacted us and we currently have no money to start building our project. If we don't get any funds, we'll have to look for a cheaper senior project to do instead. This is the crucial point in our project, it will decide everything. If we don't reach our goal for funds by the 1st of next month, we will probably switch tracks and start working on another project. It will be sad to see this project leave us, but we will not give up on it yet. We will continue to try and raise enough funds for our project.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Hope for the Future





No sponsors yet, but it has only been three days since we've sent out the sponsorship letters. We are now looking into other potential sponsors that we can send letters to. Hopefully, we will get responses by the end of this week and money so we can purchase the motorcycle next week. With that said, we have also been looking into potential motorcycles to purchase for our project. There are a few motorcycle junkyards around our area and of course there is the trustworthy "Craig's List." So far we've looked at the Honda Pacific Coast. It has a spacious cargo area that we could use to store extra battery capacity if we need it. The full bodywork of the Honda Pacific Coast would protect our electronics from the rain and other weathering.
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Honda Pacific Coast

Friday, October 3, 2014

Searching For Sponsors

We have been working on writing a sponsorship letter and getting them sent out. Hopefully, any recipient of this letter will get back to us soon with good news.