I just wanted to quick update those who are following along with the progress of Inspiration. Currently I am taking my last 5 classes at Anoka Tech for an A.S. for Electronics Engineering Technician and working full time at night, so rover work has slowed a bit.
I have figured out, however, how I am going to charge a battery with the solar panel and drive off another one and switch between the two on the fly. I purchased a 4 relay module that the Arduino can control so the batteries can be charged separately, used separately for driving, turned off when not in use, and disconnected from the solar panel in the case that both of them are fully charged.
I'm also still working on the conversion to all servos instead of DC motors and 2 servos. This is taking some time because I need to learn how to program the servo controller so that it does the basic driving commands and also talks to the Arduino.
Another thing in the works is Donald is working on the GPS guidance system so that it can use Google Maps to show were Inspiration is and also the desired way-points that it should travel to. Very exciting stuff!
All of us SpaceFest goers have recently found out that SpaceFest VII will be (tentatively) in June of 2016, so that takes a huge load off of this project since I really wanted to have a lander made up for the next time we possibly display at SpaceFest. Now that I don't need to work on a lander, I can stay focused on really making Inspiration the rover it deserves to be.
I should be done with school in mid December so I plan on really taking off with this project by then. So be patient. These next couple of months probably won't have much for updates but soon there will be very exciting things going on again. Aside from finishing Inspiration, there will be a new blog to follow for the lander and all of its complexities, and then another blog for the liquid fueled rocket! I'm sure things will get crazy with that one. So stay tuned and have fun! Also, if anyone is working on a similar project, I'd love to hear from you!
