Week 9, May 26 - June 1

This week we did some testing of the plane and held a steady hover after fixing some minor flaws from the week before. Specifically the battery was held securely and the pitch gyro sensitivity was reduced. Previously the pitch gyro was over correcting the hover.  As can be seen in the video, the plane was capable of holding a steady hover while in helicopter mode.  The plane was also tested in for its abilities as a VTOL and unfortunate it crashed.  The damage from the crash can be seen in Figure 1.  The nose will be rebuilt and it will be tested again this upcoming week.

Figure 1: Crashed Ariplane

Week 8, May 19-25

This week the team worked together on testing the plane.  There were numerous attempts to get it off of the ground and hold it in a hover, but there was little success.  It seems that the problem is composed of several things. First, not all of the gyros were originally used.  In the first video, one can see the plane kind of rolling and not keeping a stable hover.  Secondly,  the controls for the plane were reversed and inverted, as to say the aileron control was controlled with the left joystick, and the yaw was controlled with the right stick and reversed.  The reason for this is because the chip that is being used only allows for one mode of flight, so when the physical body of the plane switches from when method of flight to another, the flight controls are reversed.  Originally the controls were set up to be normal for helicopter mode and reversed for plane mode, but seeing as it is almost impossible to fly a helicopter with reversed controls, the team switched them.  So for the second video, the controls are set up in a way that the airplane controls are reversed and the helicopter controls are normal.   These problems were fixed and the second video presents a better hover.  The second video shows the plane nose dive.  This is caused by the battery having not been properly held down to the plane, so it slid to the front as the plane flew backwards.  The plane will be finalized and continued to be tested within the next week.

Week 7, May 12-18

Figure 1: Wing with Electronics

 In week 7, the group put together the electronics.  The wing was the first piece to receive its electronics, as it has most of the work to do.  In Figure 1, the wing is completed with both propellers in place and completely wired.  Figures 2 and 3 give a closer look at the propellers and the motors they are connected to.  The propellers are attached to the motors which are attached to some K'Nex piece which are held onto the carbon fiber rob and all the propeller to turn from vertical to horizontal and vice versa.  In figure 4, the servos which is used to turn the fiber rob is placed inside the wing and attached to the wing itself.  Figure 5 gives a large picture of the wing on its top.  Figure 6 shows the electronics being placed in the main fuselage.  All of the components were glued to a specific spot to make sure the plane had a stable center of gravity.  Once these were all glued together, and the wing was placed on top, the plane was ready for testing.  The top that covers all of the components will be placed on the plane next time, and hopefully will be ready for testing by the end of the week.

Figure 2: Left Propeller

Figure 3: Right Propeller

Figure 4: Underneath the Center of the Wing

Figure 5: Bottom view of the Wing

Figure 6: The Fuselage and Wing

Week 6: May 5 - May 11

Figure 1: Wing Rib

This week we worked on putting the wing together as seen in Figure 3.  The ribs were cut out at 3-3/8" to match the width of the wing and given a rounded top to give depth to the wings.  There are 20 ribs spread across the wing.  Several ribs were glued to both ends as well as in the center due to the wieght in those positions as seen in Figure 4.  The wing needs to be stronger on the ends in order to hold itself together while supporting the weight of the motors, so more ribs were placed in those areas.  The center is attached to the plane and requires a large amount of strength as it is the connection to the main body.  Holes had to be cut in the ribs in order to allow the carbon fiber rod, which will hold and turn the motors, to turn indie the wing.  The holes are centered inside the rib as seen in Figure 2.  After the holes were cut the ribs were glued to the bottom of the wing.  Once they were set, the top of the wing was glued on as seen in Figure 5.  Everything was put together with hot glue.



Figure 2: Ribs with holes



Figure 3: Ribs on the Wing

Figure 4: Ribs on the Wing: Top View

Figure 5: Complete Wing

The tail wing was fabricated the same way as the main wing except with less ribs.  It can be seen in Figure 6. In Figure 7, the tail wing is shown complete with its wings covered. This covers the work that was completed up to May 9th.

Figure 7: Tail Wing Complete

Figure 6: Tail Wing

 



Week 5 Post April 21-May 4

Today the group worked on cutting out the pieces of the wings for assembly.  The wings will be made of three different types of pieces, the top and bottom parts that will enclose the ribs which will give the wings a depth. As seen in Figure 1, the depth of the wing will allow for a great lift while the airplane flies in plane mode.  The small bar the is going through the wing is a carbon fiber rod that will turn the motors after the airplane takes off vertically and when required to land vertically. The electronics and servos will be placed inside the plane which will be hallow. The wings were completely cut out and are ready to be glued together.  The last things needed to be cut out are the main piece that will hold the two fuselages together, and the tail wings.  Once these are all cut out, It will be glued together and the motors will be ready to be attached.

Figure 1: Remodeled Creo Design with Rotors

The plane body was cut out, and part of the electrical was completed today.  The rotors were connected to their circuit boards by having their wires soldered together.  In Figure 2, one of the motors in being soldered to its board with a soldering iron.  This completes the work that was performed on Thursday.

Figure 2: Soldering the Rotor to its Circuit Board

Figure 1:Fuselage Being Cut Out

 In Figure 1, the fuselage drawing that was drawn in CAD was printed out on a drafting printer and placed on the foam to make the cuts more precise.  The foam was cut with an exacto knife, and two fuselages were cut out.  These two fuselages are 24" and will have a piece of foam, 2" wide placed between them that will give a space for the circuit board, battery, and other electronics.  Figure 2 shows the fuselage almost completely cut out.  In Figure 3, the fuselage is cut out and ready to be assembled.  The foam proved to very stable and allowed for accurate cuts without any problems.

Figure 2: Cutting the Fuselage

Figure 3:Main Fuselage

Week 4 April 21-27

This week we brought in the foam and had the CAD drawing printed out to scale in order to cut the plane out accordingly. 

Foam for Main Body

The foam is 10"X30" and fuselage will be 22".  The wings will also be cut out and have a wing span of 18".   These will be cut out and glued together.  The team is working on cutting it out.  To prep for it, the drawings from last week will be printed out in order to be used as stencils on the foam.

KKmulticontroller v.5.5

In the mean time, research was also conducted on trying to discover how to have the plane hover evenly while the rotors are vertical.  The KKmulticontroller v.5.5 “Blackboard”
The Multicopter Flight Controller was found to be the best piece to use.  It will be able to keep the plane in a stable while hovering in order to keep it from flying in an unordered fashion.  This board can control anywhere from 2 to 6 rotors with the simple purpose of stabilizing the aircraft while flying.  It performs this action by taking signals from three different gyros and reads it on its integrated circuit board which processes the information and then sends out a control signal to the Electronic Speed Controllers which are attached to both the board and the motors.  Depending on the signal from circuit board, the electronic speed controllers will either speed the motors up for slow them down in order to keep the aircraft level. Along with keeping the aircraft in a steady flight, it will also allow the aircraft to move forwards, backwards, left, right, up, and down.  This piece of technology will prove to be most helpful when engineering this airplane.

Week 3 post April 14-20

Figure 1: BVertol Ofsprey

 We created a Cad model that can be cut out by a laser cutting in machine which cuts foam.  We will either have the body laser cut or hand cut it ourselves.  We have also created a 3 dimensional version in Creo Parametrics.  This will serve as a useful reference when creating the plane in order to give a general idea of where everything goes.  These models will hopefully help us put the plane together once all the parts come in.  They are all ordered and will hopefully be in by next week. 

Figure 2: Creo Model of Airplane

Figure 3: Creo Model of Airplane

 In Figure 2 and figure 3, a model was created in Creo Parametrics 1.0 to give a rough 3-D sketch of the airplane.  It does not have its propellers or motors on it yet as they are still being worked on.  Figure 4 is a CAD drawing which can be read by a laser foam cutter that can be used to cut the plane out without and human work.  These drawings will prove to be valuable as the team receives all the materials and can begin fabrication.
   The team also did research to find out all the required materials and found that they would need the following; Propellers - provides thrust required to move the airplane Propeller Adapters - fastens propellers to the motor Carbon Fiber Rod - gives strength to the airplane's wings Foam - the substance the airplane is composed of Battery - a source of power for all electronics Servos - provide movement to all control surfaces Motors - provide thrust to give the airplane flight Electronic speed controllers(ESC's) - regulates the motor's electricity consumption 3-Axis flight stabilizer - stabilizes the airplane's movement while hovering.

Figure 4: CAD model for laser cutting

These parts were all ordered from  hobbyking.com and valuehobby.com.  The total cost came to $130 split between the five members.  This is all the research and work that was performed with week and the group hopes to start building next week. 

Second Week, April 7-14, Sketching and Dimension

Week 2
Today we started talking about the basics of the plane and how the plane will operate.  We did some research on how the making of the plane is possible.  We looked up forums of other people who have created them before in order to get an idea of weight distribution and sizing.  We found this forum extremely helpful, http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1496110.  We decided that the airplane have a wingspan of 18' x 3.5'  with an area of 63.5 cube inches.  Then we continued to look into the different weights of the plane and how to distribute it correctly.  We will be using foam for the main frame of the plane, and the motors may be supported by a carbon fiber bar that spans across the wings.  Some plans will be drawn up on how to cut the foam, and a laser cutter may be used to cut out the foam, otherwise it will be cut out by hand.  We planned to meet at least twice a week outside of class in order to work on the robot. This is all we covered during this meeting.

Week 1, March 31 - April 6, Ideas

During the first week we were introduced with a project of recreating a wind turbine to conduct electricity.  The group decided they did not want to fabricate that, but instead came up with other ideas.  The group decided on a Model VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) airplane.  These model planes are not currently on the market for purchasing and only a few people have attempted to create them.  The group saw this as an opportunity to create a model airplane that was not so simple to create.  They brainstormed and came up with the idea.  Mark Petro-Roy will be leading the group, as he has a strong foundation in replicating model airplanes.  The group went to work in the first week to  look into ordering the necessary parts and laying out a plan and timeline of when they will finish their major tasks. This concluded the works of week one.