January 2012 Archive

Jan 31 – Lone Ranger update

1/31/12

Here’s the first photo update from Don on the Lone Ranger. He and Joe are on a 14-day voyage between Bermuda and the Bahamas to help scientists from the Schmidt Ocean Institute document the Sargassum population in that area. They took the aerial photos using GoPros and a Canon G12 on an inflatable rokkaku kite and an inflatable Fled. The camera rig shown is a gyro-stabilized mount that hangs from the kite bridle or kite line. In the photo it is holding the G12 and the Axis cam, but we can also use it with GoPros or other small or mid-sized cameras. The rows of Sargassum that are visible from the higher-up kite shots are called windrows. The SOI cruise […more]

Jan 29 – Arrival in Bermuda

1/29/12

Don and Joe arrived in Bermuda and met the Lone Ranger research team. Don kitesurfed around the boat and he and Joe took some photos at the dock.

Eye-Fi setup

1/24/12

The Eye-Fi SD card works with the CF card adapter in the 7D. With the metal parts of the adapter taken off, it works as well as does the Eye-Fi SD card on its own in the GoPro, which means it works from halfway across the shop, but not all the way across the shop. The card is rated to 45 ft from the router indoors and 90 ft from the router outdoors.

The above distances are using the KAI wi-fi. When I turned off wi-fi and used “Direct Mode,” the network was very unreliable and had to be restarted often. It did not appear to reach as far as the wi-fi. The furthest away I could get it to […more]

Camera weights

1/18/12

GoPro + case = 170 g = 6 oz = .4 lbs
GoPro with no case = 98 g = 3.5 oz = .2 lbs

Canon 7D + standard lens + battery = 1596 g = 56.3 oz = 3.5 lbs
Sony HDV video camera + battery = 664 g = 23.4 oz = 1.5 lbs

Testing new rokkaku kites

1/17/12

Dudu and Betsy tried out a couple of new rokkaku kites this morning, and he, Don, and Betsy went out this evening to try some more. The photos preceding each label depict that model in flight.

From Dudu:
Our prototypes from versions 26 27,28,29 and 30 are made with the 2 piece light Dacron material with the closing seam on top of the tubes. This caused the curve to be flatter than usual.

We tried to fix this issue on version 30 by adding more curve to the design, but we also changed the curvature flow, getting more curve at the center than the tips. This resulted in the same maximum, but the new flow is not ideal, making […more]

Balloon kite flight

1/13/12

Yesterday Dudu inflated both of the new balloon kites in the shop and left them overnight to insure that there were no leaks. Today we inflated one with helium and launched it outside.

Balloon KITE DATA:

Diameter of Burger: 2000m
Height to Diameter ratio: 0.6
Height of Burger: 1200mm
Volume of an ellipsoid: 4/3 * PI * a*b*c
(a,b,c are each radii, so a=b and c=height)
Volume of our Burger: 4/3 * PI * 1*1*0.6 = 2.5 cubic meters
1 cubic meter = 35 cubic feet
Volume of Burger: 88 cubic feet

We used the 110cubic feet tank of helium to fill and there was some left.

Our 3D gas kite improved the […more]