Goal Overview

1. Project Description and Merits

The project is to build a program using certain modules from Javascript utilising the Node.js module and Felixge’s AR Drone module. We will get the drone to navigate by itself by detecting obstacles or following a set of instructions or signals, such as colored lines. This project will advance STEM because it allows for further advancements in drones and can lead to autonomous drone tracking and it will allow the drone to think and make decisions, as well as corrections, itself. This can decrease drone accidents and make the controller’s lives easier, and will be more precise and is faster than human input.  

2. Group/Team Communication

The only members in our group are me and Ayoush. We may need to work with group 2 (Jacob, Alan, and Ryan) because they are also working with drones. We will communicate with each other via Facebook Messenger.

3. Prior Work/Resource Inventory

We have absolutely no experience with this. Our project resources are the web, youtube, and previous group’s work.

4. Technology Analysis

We need coding and engineering. We need coding in order to code the drone to follow lines and other commands, and we also need to write a script for the drone to follow. We also need to program the drone to interpret the data. We need engineering in case something goes wrong or we need to fix something physically.

5. Competence

Again, the skill sets that we need are coding and engineering for the same reasons. We also need to be patient and accept failure and are persistent. We also need to be precise and run many trials.

6. Safety

Safety is not a concern, except maybe getting cut by the drone blades.

7. Equipment, Materials & Budget

We will need the FreeFlight AR Drone, a Windows Laptop, and a Mac. There should be no software costs because we will be using free, open-source software. We will need to download Node.js, Felixge’s AR Drone module, and Sublime Text 3.

8. Schedule

Our goals for next week is to continue experimenting with the code and trying different actions, like flips, rotating, revolving, etc. We will investigate deeper and look at last year’s code and blogs to see what trouble we may run into and how to resolve them. We will do more research and maybe try to do something with the sensors.