Beginnings
When first reading about this challenge, there were many things that came to mind about helping the pandemic with drones. During these unique times, drones can be used very efficiently to stay within safety protocols. The idea that struck me the most was delivering goods (blood samples, test kits, etc.) in order to avoid human contact, and simple surveillance of an area. This code can be further developed for more complex deliveries and surveillance in an effort to fight against the pandemic and make life easier for people during these tough times.
Drone Assembly
Building the drone was a rewarding, but somewhat difficult experience. For me, it was the first time doing a project with any sort of hardware. I wanted to challenge myself to see how I would preform on something I was unfamiliar with. Assembling the drone was not very difficult, however the troubleshooting that came after proved to be tough. I ended up having to deal with either a faulty PDB or ESC, which delayed the process a bit. After talking to members of the #hovergames channel of the PX4 slack, I was able to fix the issue and get the drone in the air. Seeing it fly for the first time was very rewarding.
Flying
During some initial flight tests, I observed some vibration issues and unfortunately cracked one of the landing gear parts on the drone. It ended up working out fine, because I was able to get my hands on a new 3D printed version very quickly. After I got the hang of it, it was a blast.
Writing the Application
I decided to write my application using Python and MAVSDK. This was for no particular reason. The application I wrote has 2 simple options: deliver mode or survey mode. In deliver mode, the drone will start at a position, takeoff, and move to a specified position. In survey mode, the drone will take off and preform a rectangular pattern with custom increments so that the width/length of the survey can be altered.
Also, when going through the code examples in the documentation, I was able to find and fix some typos that should get rid of the confusion for whoever is going through things next.
Takeaways
Overall, I had a great experience with this project. I went out of my comfort zone and learned a ton of new things. I was able to overcome many problems with things I've never had experience with. Although building the drone seemed very intimidating at first, it was mostly a smooth experience and well worth the time.
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