GrassrootsMapping
Advanced Projects
Here are some suggested advanced projects which we’d love people to tackle:
- Build your own giant kite based on the Sutton FlowForm or another design.
- Build a giant rubber-band powered cannon (we have surgical tubing… and try using large cardboard construction tubes) to fire a camera in the air, to deploy a parachute and snap pictures on the way down.
- Invent a way to get an untethered balloon to stay at a given altitude, or even to steer it to a landing site. This would be great for Grassroots Mapping Coal River
- Construct a cheap airplane from ecological composites (also useful for the Grassroots Mapping Coal River project) which we can mount our autopilot in (see Uav Photography) to image large areas.
- Build a hot air balloon (create a Hot Air Balloon page) from large trash bags, measure lift
- Develop a circuit which can trigger a digital camera so we don’t have to use Canon cameras with the CHDK. Circuits of this type can be found online; make a very simple one and document how to make it and attach it to a camera
- Prototype a helium-filled kite: Helium Kite that flies in low wind but does not drop due to wind