User:Dchiostri/ENES-100/Project 2

Week1 Narrative
Added comments to TCP .vp's.

Found a usefull website showing how to comment a .vi in the process.

Attempted to fly the drone using the Simple Video.vi (one of the examples). Was able to get a consistent video feed, but for actual flying the drone was too unstable. One of 3 things would happen:
 * It would clear less than an inch off the ground before tilting wildly off the ground and "crash," disabling itself
 * It would, after heavy adjustments, no longer have enough lift to take off at all and whirl uselessly.
 * Or it would do nothing because it was locked up after it "crashed" (again from an altitude of 0 inches) and needed a hard reset by either reconnecting the battery or pressing the reset button on the bottom.

Switched to using the X-Box controller .vi, hoping for greater control. Found that it was necessary to set the ID number within the Find Gamepad VI manually. Did not get any different results when actually trying to fly, but while getting the second result (useless whirling) noticed that the rear right (when facing camera) fan may be reversed, though this may be an illusion brought on by the "trimming."

Attempted to make own program based on the example .vis, it failed find the x-box controller and couldn't funtion - still troubleshooting the problem.

The self-made program aside, a different drone in a better state of repair would likely result in greater progress for the next week.

Capture it! You able to do it through a sample VI? ... Looks like you did. This is incredible. Through an example program? Fantastic. Looks like lots of success. The documentation of the VI is a great push also. Need a video showing from no vi, to the video showing how the pairing worked, how VI talked to the Drone. 10/10/40 --1sfoerster (discuss • contribs) 14:03, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Week2 Narrative
Discovered Drone 2 wasn't modified to use a different battery "clip" like Drone 3 was, but the battery it had with it was also standard. However, the battery for Drone 2 is completely dead. The batteries, according to the manufacturer, should charge in 1.5 hours, it failed to show any signs charging after 3. Was able to borrow the battery from the home drone thanks to Drone 2 being unmodified.

Drone 2 was able to fly. After reaching an altitude of about 1 foot and going a distance of about 8 inches (showing it isn't entirely stable, but still a huge step up from Drone 3) it hit the underside of a chair and crashed.

Realizing there was not adequate space for test flying indoors, began preparations for outdoor testing. In order to change the drone to outdoor mode a new program needed to be written to adjust the settings.

The program had one glitch. It would crash, throwing "Error 66: Remote Server (referring to the drone) disconnected." This was fixed by deactivating the "Highlight Execution" diagnostic tool. It shouldn't appear in normal operation.

Further progress could not be made due to a (now settled) family emergency.


 * Good report, need video. Need someone else replicating your success. Need presentation of step by step documentation for more points. Example: install DR drone software, find DR drone controller in pallet, etc.. ... how to check if installed correctly ... screen shots of installed correctly ... here is video of it working ... here is what I press on the keyboard ... to cause it to move up ... 10/10/10 --1sfoerster (discuss • contribs) 22:19, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Week3 Narrative
Made 2 short flights with Drone 2 using the "Simple Video" example .vi. The drone shows a tendency to bank heavily left (it is facing towards me in the video.)

Link to video of both flights.

Installed Jing Flew the drone at the Foundation Fighting Blindness: Recorded both on film, also recorded screen using Jing during x-box flights to help analyze controls.
 * Flew drone with simple video .vi
 * Flew drone using x-box controller

The Video of the Flights

Had significant difficulty creating the video.
 * Wanted to make a split screen to show the screen recordings and video recordings side by side.
 * Wanted to be able to use the screen recordings.

Discovered Windows Movie Maker doesn't support a split screen feature, but that older versions could do it with a third party add-on. I found Movie Maker 6 online (the version the add-on is for) and installed it.  Installed the add-on, it is NOT freeware - it has a 2 week trial period, then goes on "limited functionality", don't know if that includes the split screen mode (it does other things).
 * It works by placing 2 videos on the timeline, placing the split-screen transition between them, then stretch the transition (in the space below the videos but above audio) so that it "drags" one video with it over the other.

Jing only records in .swf files. Movie Maker cannot read these, so a conversion is necessary. However, whenever I went to convert it using an online application, either using a file or through Jing's website, it failed. Often got a file that had a blank screen and audio, or no file at all depending on website used. Likely reason for the failure is because Jing incorporates a non-standard player into their .swf's that converters can't handle. Downloaded and installed cam studio to screen capture the screen captures. Cam Studio only recorded the video (sound card design issue most likely). Movie Maker 6 would not open the Cam Studio created video file - converted it with the current version of Movie Maker to a .wmv. Combined Video from Cam Studio with Audio from conversion websites using Movie Maker 6 to make usable videos of the screen recordings.
 * Discovered that Cam Studio's installer is considered a virus because it installs lots of malware to "bring in ad revenue," if you can find an old version to install and upgrade, that may be the wiser way to go; if not, make a note of what other programs it installs so you can uninstall them.


 * You have provided ample evidence that you can get it to work. But still not enough for someone else to even find a starting point. Stop everything until you can cut from a video of the screen to a video of the real world. No transitions. Go with tools that are readily available. Start over and provide a tutorial that starts from scratch. Both drone and xbox controller. What you are doing is amazing ... and I need something so simple, that other professors can by into it ... Tuesday of next week .. before class. 10/10/20 --1sfoerster (discuss • contribs) 13:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Week4 Narrative
Made 4 (of 8 planned) tutorial videos:
 * AR Drone Tutorial: Basics and Packing
 * AR Drone Tutorial: Connecting
 * AR Drone Tutorial: Charging
 * AR Drone Tutorial: LabView Toolkit

Used new camera to shoot some of them - needed tripod, which old camera couldn't use.
 * Discovered camera shot in file type incompatible with Movie Maker (.mov).
 * Used VLC Media Player to Convert files to .mp4 for Movie Maker Essentials.
 * Then used Movie Maker Essentials to convert to .wmv for Movie Maker 6.

Used annotations to make tables of contents in videos on youtube.

4 remaining videos to do next:
 * Example .vi Overview
 * X-Box Controller
 * Flight Basics
 * Settings.vi (Optional since this is still a buggy self-made .vi)