Filler vacation

Hello!

Let me describe how the vacation went, like I do every time. The title gives you some idea... it says "Filler vacation". So it was not so exciting, 'twas just a filler between two semesters.

I have four days to catch my train and a week for the exams to catch me. Speaking frankly, I had two months of full free time. Academically lot of time was lost and it was up to me to use it wisely. Did I or did I not? Hmm... Let me come back to this one later.

Lately I was emphasizing on interpersonal relations. I went and met people this time for I was feeling isolated from the world all the semester. I talked like never before(I suppose). I had habit of keeping mum in front of others most of the time. I always feared the future without living in present. I often regretted for my past. Timescale being plus/minus 4 years(Phew! That is a lot to fear/regret). But this comic from Zen pencils: The Dalai Lama answers a question changed me. Please read the comic to understand what I mean.

"Living in present"... I still have no idea how it feels to live like that because when all lights go off and I lie on bed at the end of day, I cannot mentally stay still. Instead I dance to the music of never fading fears inside my heart. When will this stop? When will I stop regretting for what I didn't do? Concentrating for weeks couldn't be possible as I had to take break for a while. I had an "agenda" for this vacation as well which included MATLAB programming, Antenna theory, Signals and Systems, LaTex and transmission lines. Apart from some of these I learned how television, radar, binaural recording and sound surround system work(thanks to the newly bought 5.1 channel home theater at home). Although I focus for short periods on different things, I find it difficult to pursue just one for days.

Things done this vacation:
Newspaper- Did not miss the national politics this time(was a morning addiction)
Milk- Glass full Horlicks every morning
Youtube- Stand up comedies and fun videos
Email- not to miss
WhatsApp- Every morning and evening
Teasing my younger brother!
Reading- Art of electronics, Signals and Systems and Wikipedia
Over usage of WiFi- crossed data limit many times
School visit- Met my teachers and old friends
That's it!

Now I am bracing myself for exams and the next half of third year at college(Winter is coming.... so is even semester). Now you got a picture of how I did this vacation.

Goutham

My brother's golden words - Scientists are Gods

Hi!

I have one younger brother, 14 yrs old. His name is Bharadwaj. I call him Baby. The following words were written by him when he took my laptop and started typing in Word. I feel this has got much deeper meaning(if you ignore his erratic grammar)...

"Hello, my name is Bharadwaj. My regular activities are going to school, going to Sharma(extra tuition), coming back to home eating supper and going to bed but this time I want to do something that no one does. Believing in god and I believe what some priest says this is my ideology. I used to belief that god helps us to do become what we wish to become but according to the 21st century scientists there is no god but that is all our belief. As per my ideology god is there but I cannot show them the proof so what I meant to say is that scientists are nothing but GOD. The similarities between god and scientists is that of same kind i.e help. Now I can show the proof with my simple hands with no papers in my pocket when any one asks that show me the god I can hover my hands towards that person as people are nothing but scientists"

Thanks for reading!

Rain rain go away.... come again never(atleast for a few months)

Hey fellow citizens!

I am writing this sitting comfortably on sofa in my home. This post got here because I am safe and connected at all times. Because I got away in time to escape the hell downpour and swift floods of Chennai and surrounding districts. The previous post was written as we were asked to vacate the hostels asap and holidays declared for atleast a month. Me and many of my friends got tickets booked in time, enough in time to be well out of the cyclone's reach. We are now feeling lucky and safe.

But what about others? There are people in my college as I write, stranded in hostels and waiting to go home with neither electricity nor healthy food. They are helping each other for basics like food, water and medicine. Some of them have showed their struggle through whatsapp by sharing pictures and distress messages. News reports poured in this evening saying that northern Tamil Nadu will get heavy rain for next 3 days. This is terrible! All those whom I have blamed, sorry. Its not your fault.

This is a natural disaster! All India Radio news reported all the three armed forces along with NDRF(National disaster response force) are working tirelessly to move residents in city to safety. Army is distributing food near my college. This has never happened ever before. In a city like Chennai, where monsoon just reminded heavy traffic and overflowing drainage. Now we are talking about overflowing rivers and lakes. This was never expected.

I have no idea how this is going to end with few more days of heavy rain warning. I pray for the people of the submerged areas. I pray for their health and comfort. Lets be hopeful... lets stay strong...
#Chennaifloods
#Chennairains

Goutham

Good news and bad news

Hey folks!

Let me share. There is good as well as bad news.

Good news is my winter holidays start from now, highly unexpected.
Bad news is all end semester exams are postponed to post-vacation i.e. exams to be written after returning from home.

All this happened because the city near my college, Chennai was drowned since two weeks and situation is still very bad. The next semester will be the worse because time will get wasted up in conducting exams and lessons are to be rushed up in short duration. Even semesters are shorter than odd ones.

So whom to blame?

It is certainly not my college. Lets not blame it this time...

Two culprits:

1. Chennai metropolitan development board (CMDB): key people didn't take care much about desilting the city's drainage pipes and lied that the underground network is 'fit' to take heavy downpours to gut inspite of being warned from meterology department.

2. Climate change: This time weekend rainfall broke all previous ten years' record(to 243mm) flooding all streets of Chennai and other cities in Tamil Nadu. This unusual pattern can be attributed to climate change(my opinion).

All of us at hostel have got mixed feelings. Exams being postponed made us a bit relieved and also angry at same time. We waited for three weeks, preparing ourselves mentally to face all exams but only to know that we have to leave for home without writing even one.

As I write Kritin is pressing his fungus filled clothes while Tanishq is watching some hollywood movie. We three will clear in next 48 hours. Home awaits us, our next asylum.

Read me then
Goutham

Quotes that I stuck around

Hi!

Everyone likes staying motivated rather than doing something motivating. Either way, motivation comes first. These are quotes I have been sticking around since two months to help myself stay motivated.

Top motivator nowadays is Call of Duty. Yes! Call of Duty! The game says it all.

>The only easy day was yesterday
>Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of light!
>Hey Goutham! You have all the time on this planet to do anything you wish. Just do it!
>Start the ground work
>The life you knew before is gone. Today, we fight to bring it back - Captain Price
>All it takes to change the course of  of history is the will of a single man - Vladimir Makarov

A word about Captain Price:
He has become my new inspiration.

Posters!!!

These posters are made by me for my college projects. Let me archive them here.

Goutham

The month's roundup

Big things happened this time!
.
.
Really!

I switched over to Nokia 1100(that old.... phone, just phone) from Samsung Star. Android in small phones sucks! There are no developers taking care of smaller models and as time passes, the OS crashes these phones every now and then and there will be a time when people realize the need for a basic thing called "phone".

1100 is great! Since the time I started using it, avoided momentary data connection (also balance cuts), no battery crashes(it needs to be charged only once in four days) and it slips easy into my pocket unlike those big 'galaxies' that break when you sit with them in your back pocket.

The best part is it is robust. Survives fall from great heights.

Nokia 1100, The 'phone'

This android shows itself charging in spite no
external connection. Courtesy: Kritin

Kritin and myself took part in a biology quiz 'Mind Vs Wild' this technical fest at SRM University. Though we have non-biology past, we could make it to finals. Now I explain what happened: Eight teams; each of two, made it to final round. Through all the quiz, we had score multiplier cards(2x, 3x & 4x) along with negative marking answering wrong. With these cards you can shoot your score up or bring it down. Since its eight questions and 3 cards for each team, the cards had to be used somewhere. We all had great time till last question. Astonishingly, four teams scored 56 and other four teams scored 10. It was a tie. Another question(this time any card choice) to go and we decided to use 2x. We didn't want to take risk but we answered it correct. The last two teams took 4x and their answers were also right(Noooooooooooo!). Since it was another tie, one of them won and carried away 6000 INR. The next team carried 3000 INR. We carried nothing(Uh! we must have taken 4x and made it forward). We both learnt a lesson: take risks.

Another highlight during the week was 'The Eye'. It is a prop human eye(ignore the size) Kritin and myself made for Arvind(the committee head) of the ongoing fest, Aaruuushh(Yeah it sounds kinda awkward but lets face it - AAARUUSHHHHHHH.........., the non-technical management fest of SRM University [Hehe, just kidding...]). Here is footage of Kritin and me with The Eye:

The next day we had 'Kanan Gill' show in our campus. Had good laugh over things we often listen to!

Then came project time. Time to test our skills, creativity and passion towards electronics(seriously) under two subjects: microprocessors and communication systems. You can take a look at communication systems project report here. It is a simulation project which simulates....well, take a look as I said.

In the microprocessor one, we use a microcontroller(to those MBA guys: both don't differ much in terms of productivity). Kritin made a robot. The video above explains it all. "The robot is intended to make noise, wake man, make him chase and switch it off. Thus ensuring he is ready for the day's work with nice warm-up" said Kritin. The irony: on day of submission, he had to wake up early to prepare the robot. The next day he woke up at 8 only to realize that he switched off his phone when it rang at 6. He needn't bunk a class if he'd prepared that thing a day earlier:(

I made this:

I call it Electronic Tape. As you see the board itself is not the project. It has microcontroller at top, three counters driving 7 segment displays below with red reset button to set the measured distance in meters back to zero. How do we measure? You can see a glass blob with blue and red wires coming outta lower right of the board. Its called photodiode. There is a glowing LED positioned opposite to photodiode across a slotted wheel which is rotated on ground with a long holding support. The controller counts number of times photodiode is blocked and for every meter certain number corresponds, it sends signal to decimal counters to increment the displayed value by one.

  E-tape as described above 

Shit happens. Even to me. Few call me Bhagwan(God) for what I do. I deny. Because God has no form i.e. no physical body, hence no hands and legs. So he is jobless. I am busy(writing this post). So I am not God:)

Hence shit happens.

I went into low the day before project demo and ate junk outside that night. Came back to room and checked the battery. It was discharged! This charged me to change the battery and got me work till 5:30am to make the board shown above. What a night!


I heard my calling earlier this month. It is just one word. It is GATE, Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering. It is my GATEway to my future. From now I have 15 months to prepare well. 15 months to prove that even a loser can have an awesome career. 15 months to prove myself. Let me prove it.

I was having financial problems(you call it miserliness) lately. Couldn't even afford to buy a new bucket(handle broken) and pillow(don't know why).

I made changes to the site-
>Wider content
>No G+ profile
>No 'freedom' picture
All these do not matter much. I was just trying to reduce the blog's loading time.

About Kritin: You must have noticed a name which I mentioned thrice(third at this sentence' beginning). Kritin is an electronics hobbyist, my friend and roommate. "I want to do research, teach and win Noble prize" he says. He is ready to sell the above robot. Ask for a quote by commenting below if you are finding it difficult to wake up early.

Now its time for some random pics:

When intellectual individuals are given time to do just one thing - waste!

Eleven displayed on seven segment display. Error!

Best battery in the world.


















The Boogeyman
courtesy: Kritin

Foreground: Green LED(on)
Background: Blue LED(off)

RBG mix on my palm


















Thanks for reading!
Goutham

Some pics I wanted to share since the start

Hello!

These pictures are taken with my phone camera. They are of my random interests...

Hanging coin chain with magnet in vicinity. Courtesy: My friend Kritin

Happy Birthday tune played by Arduino PWM trick on my B'day
courtesy: Kritin

Longitudinal cutaway of a bad battery
Courtesy: Shivam Prakash

My highest score in Google chrome dinosaur game:912

So many female headers strips!
Courtesy: SRM VAIMAANIX

Bus tickets of a solo adventure to Mylapore, Chennai on a fateful midnight.

Red and Red match!


Goutham

My new earphones

Hi People!

I am posting things very late nowadays. I call this procrastination.

Now let me stop bitching about myself and come to the point. A month ago I bought a new pair of earphones. This one was much expensive compared to what I used earlier, but it is worth the cost.

What led me to buy new ones?
Ans: No quality sound and no more hacks left.

I ordered my first pair on Flipkart in the middle of 2nd semester when I forget my Samsung ones at home. Yes, Samsung was good then. A friend of me suggested Philips SHE1360 and it costed me 150 rupees. It had really good bass but less efficiency as my roommates could hear what I can(half the sound escaped from behind). As end of fourth semester was near, the left can stopped working. since using just the right one was uncomfortable, I brought another failed earphones from home whose right can was damaged, then I cut off the defective ones and connected male jacks to their respective females.

These two females are marked L and R. Now the corresponding Left and Right signals come from a male header, with common ground which goes into phone/computer. Essentially I made two different pairs of earphones to work as one(after clipping off dumb sides). The awkward part; this earphone's left one is in-ear and right is on-ear. These is again a problem since in-ears have lesser sound loss, hence needed to manually balance sound levels in system's settings.

This hybrid style served till almost end of exam week. Now there are no partly scrape earphones left as both sides failed at once. Now I have a real excuse to buy new pair. All my friends talk about Skull Candy, Beats and Bose(The starting price is Rs.5000). I was then looking in range of Rs.500-1000(with parents' consent). At home during summer, I used my mother's Transcend. It has excellent sound clarity.

After returning back to hostel, I often turned music loud(laptop speakers are a horrible way, they give you wrong impression of whats being played). Till then I didn't spent great deal on earphones. One day while I was studying, my roommate lent Sennheiser CX180, asking me to try it.

BHAM! Those sounded with incredible clarity, ear-thumping bass and priced reasonably. I already had good image of the brand. So I proceeded to order one the next night. I spent Rs.948 and no regrets till now.

 Goutham

My DRDL project

Hello!

I am posting this after a long time.

My college requires me to do summer training or project for few weeks at any workplace outside to gain some practical experience. I planned to do it outside Hyderabad and live on my own, but my mother insisted that I stay at home and join some place within limits of my reach.

With some contacts through my mom's department and endless pursuing, I finally 'earned' an opportunity to work at Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) at Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad. Well, very few students get to do their training/internship at reputed organisations like the above. I felt lucky and at the same time, bit scared as how would my first day go.

I joined on 5th June. The campus is really huge. It's main road stretches itself 6 km inside till back gate(never measured it though) and its highly secured at entry points. No electronic devices are allowed inside. The scientist I was assigned to sits in a lab near the back gate. I went there almost every alternate day by taking bus and get to the lab from main gate by asking two wheeler lifts. Believe me, now I can read your mind and make you allow me to sit behind you.

The lab I worked under develops support systems for Bramhos, the hypersonic cruise missile made jointly by India and Russia. At the time I worked, it housed the launcher truck and communications truck. Those were quite big.

My mentor was Mr. Shammas Mohyaddin. He described himself as an electrical guy the first time I met him and was then studying control of seeker's gimbal motors. He asked me if was interested in PID control. I happily said 'Yes!'(That was what I was aiming for with coreless motors of my tiny quadcopter project).The sad thing was I had to be well versed in control system concepts first of all and I opted out computer architecture as my 4th semester elective in spite of having control systems as a choice. Though I realized the latter's importance a bit later, I still regret.

My project was to study and simulate speed and position control of a armature controlled DC motor through Prorportional-Integral-Derivative(PID) control using MATLAB's Simulink. Mentor suggested me 'Control systems engineering by Norman Nise'. I should say, this is a great book. It got me interested in control systems in very less time(Just read the first chapter). I had three weeks time to finish it and my mentor being busy, spent an hour and half with me every time I visit to teach concepts and clarify doubts. Thank You Sir!

Though the staff does not allow you to use the hardware and facilities there at this stage, you can learn lot about things they work on. There is also a library there to help you out.

With this, I almost finished main portions of the book and could learn Simulink on my own to prepare submit my report on time(I could document only the speed control one). I learnt two things from this experience:

1. I have grown up and now it's my turn to learn and do things which I like. There is no time to be wasted.

2. 'I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul', quoted from 'Invictus' is very true.

Thanks for reading!
Goutham

My team won

Yes!

I am very proud to say that my team SRM VAIMAANIX won international 5th rank in annual CanSat competition held at Texas, USA during June 12-14. It is a very proud moment for all the team. We made SRM UNIVERSITY proud by standing first in India and Asia. Let me introduce my friends to you first:

From left: Tuhin, Abhisek, Bharadwaj, Arthesth, Rahul

Rahul Ramesh - Team leader
Tuhin Ranjan - Alternate team leader
Shivam Prakash - One awesome bro
Anirudh Shandilya - One more awesome bro
Abhisek Narsimhan - The little genius
Arthesth Aadhran - Egg protector
M V Bharadwaj - The fabricator

More details at http://www.cansatcompetition.com/winners.html
Reference blog is http://cansat-srmuniversity.blogspot.in/

It was a great experience working with you all!

Thanks!
Goutham

Abhisek's fairy tale

Yes

The same Macbook Abhisek whom I mentioned earlier. Here is his fairy tale(worth mentioning again).

My team was all set and two days to take-off.

Abhisek, one of the team was wary of difficulties he was going to face then. He called the first flight carrier, Etihad. He was advised to cancel his flight tickets or he would get trapped at immigration on arrival at Dallas,US. He didn't like the reply at all.

Abhisek spoke all night. Same was the reply from other travel agencies. Shit shouldn't happen this way. Below is the excerpt from what we talked that evening. It was clearly evident from the screenshots that he already cancelled his tickets by that time.

We all worked hard. Our Cansat was packed for flight by then and shopping done. Five out of seven members booked tickets. Others were Shivam Prakash, my senior(more about him later) and me. Four of the high-five spent nearly INR 70,000.

We all were silent and dumbstruck for an hour. How can one cancel flight ticket(miss a golden opportunity) just because he/she felt something might go wrong with a slightly different name in ticket from that of passport?

After an 45 mins of last conversation I had with him:

Miracle happened! Even he did't believe it for a while!

Next... All enthusiasm back to normal. As of this writing they are in Dallas, Texas. All the five... working hard to win for the launch tomorrow.

Wishing them clear skies and Best of Luck!

Goutham

I am free now

Hello!

I post this kind of stuff every time I am done with my exams. Finishing them is like breaking free.

Last time for almost half vacation I was bedridden in my uncle's place. Now I started working on the following stuff:

1. AVR C programming
2. Project Compound Eye

The first one is still in progress as I paused it in middle of 4th semester. Now I continue, at my own pace. Someday in my life(not too far) I yearn to master atleast one microprocessor architecture to learn and apply embedded systems.

Project Compound Eye is still in conceptual phase. The name suggests it all. Its about a wide curvature array of LEDs, just like a bee's eye which sense light, noted as Mims effect. This is used to create an image(possibly more than visible spectrum), by means of amplifying, processing and mapping output voltage from each LED in a spatial manner . Will say more about it later.

I got two more exciting things to share:

I am a part of team SRM VAIMAANIX, representing SRM University in annual CanSat competition to be held at Burkett, Texas during June 12-14. I could not be with my team for long and go with them to USA this time but I will next year. I did electronic fabrication and camera motor start technique and also helped in initial testing. Wishing my team Best of Luck!

Next, I will be starting my summer training at DRDL tomorrow. DRDL is one of labs under DRDO which is involved in design and development of all kinds of  missiles. I will share my experience there soon.

Goutham

Wow! I had a chance to use a Mac!

Hey!

This post is written with a Macbook Pro. It belongs to my friend Abhisek.

The interface is quite simple, though 'technical' users of Windows may find some time getting adjusted to touchpad and desktop interfaces, finding it surprisingly different. Screen of this Mac is incredible. I am really enjoying what I am writing now but still it was just 20 minutes since I switched this thing on.

All the text and graphics are far better than my PC. I mean it looks more lively. Everything about display is completely customisable. The track pad has just one button and I am not sure if this thing has got left and right clicks separately. Keyboard is quite ergonomic. This is just about how it feels.

Looks are great. This Mac is just about the size and weight of my laptop PC except this is silver and mine black. I really love the lighted apple logo, caught my imagination from a very long time. It even has got a row of battery indication LEDs, just press the button beside it and you get to see how much is left.

The best thing I think is it looks like a one piece, complete package, a computer when you close the lid. Quite compact outside and versatile inside.

After all, Its Mac.

Goutham
  

What a great game!

Hello!

Its Age Of Empires III again and we had a great time (Arvind, Kritin Vs Akshansh, Goutham)!

My team won. Below are the stats shown. I am blue and my partner purple. It was for nearly 1h 40m. Suspense and thrill filled.  

I couldn't believe my eyes after looking at the blue line. Beautiful!

Goutham

Camera Pics!

Hello!

Two recent pics taken with my tiny phone camera.

In front of my college

Rippon building in front of Chennai Park station

Goutham

Catchy lines and ironies about SRM University!

Hello!

And hello to all of you studying in SRM University, Kattankulathur.

Disclaimer: No offence intended. Just for fun!

1. No.1 private university in india
2. Best hostels ever
3. Glossy prospectus, beats Autocar.
4. Excellent front views(of buildings)
5. More exams, less studies
6. Most buses owned by
7. More fees, less books
8. Many routers, slow internet
9. China among universities
10. No idea whats being taught till end of semester

Strange(r) conversation

Hello!

I'd like to share a conversation happened with me yesterday. I don't know why but middle and old age strangers say they like me, wherever I go.

I was returning to college by train in sleeper class coach. As the train got pulled away from the origin station, I plugged in my earphones and was enjoying music for almost an hour. Little did I notice that a middle aged man sitting opposite to me was observing. I felt bit uneasy. 

Soon my ears got saturated as there's no new music in phone. I put my phone inside and took out a printed copy of college lab record and glanced at it. The man now started talking. First he asked where and what do I study. Then he asked my branch(specialization). Then he asked my name(you know my name? Its written somewhere on the right).

Then he obliged me to sit on the opposite side as I was facing bright evening Sun. 

The man asked me "Why are you very serious at this age?". 

Huh! Do I look serious?! Even my profile pic doesn't look so.

Yeah I am 18 now and within two weeks I'll be an year older. "This is time to be serious(I admit)", I replied. He started defending himself. "You need to balance everything in life and at this stage you should stay calm and happy as you don't get your teenage years back after becoming adult". 

I  really doubt what triggered him into starting conversation this way. Was it my lab report or was it the way I look? I look a bit nerdy, people say.

"I do not feel liking for anyone soon, but I liked you", he continued. "You have a nice and decent behavior... unlike others, you look intelligent".

"Thanks! I simply like what I do. I love what I learn, so I always feel good(yes..... almost)".

I feel it is not possible to have a good impression of the other person within an hour. Was this person trying to butter me? or is it true that all the above hold good?

Well, "Action shows a man's worth". That's what Lord Buddha said.

Goutham 

  

This is how you wake up early in the morning

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the 

fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes 

up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will 

starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle. When the sun 

comes up, you'd better be running” 

-Anonymous

My first answer on Quora!

Hello!

The question was:
 I want to make a Quadcopter but my budget is low. How to proceed?

My answer:

When surfing several RC hobby websites, one can find motors, frames, flight controllers, propellers, RC transmitters and receivers. Brands like Turnigy, Spektrum, Futaba, Hobbyking offer wide range of the above parts. Do not import them from international websites. Shipping and customs charge you extra. You can buy all the parts from local hobby websites. Refer to http://www.rcindia.org for links. This is a great forum for RC lovers.

If you plan to make a quadcopter whose rest mass is below 300 grams, please go for coreless DC motors(I will come to this category later). Brushless motors(BLs) are preferred for quads of 300 grams and above. To run a BL, one needs electronic speed controller(ESC) which is essentially a 3-phase oscillator that runs the former. 

For a quadcopter, you need four propellers. So, you need four BLs and four ESCs.  On Ebay the lowest range is about Rs.700-900 for a BL, Rs.600-800 for a ESC, Rs. 500 for good ABS propeller set(2 CW and 2 CCW). Flight controller starts from somewhere around Rs.2500 and the cheapest Radio control Tx and Rx is around Rs.2500. LiPo battery of  2000mAh(good flight time) costs Rs.1500-2000. You can either buy a frame or make one using aluminium channels with fixtures and base plates for motors and electronics. Overall it costs well over Rs.10,000. 

The best way to cut cost is to compromise on weight(below 300g). This way you can go for much cheaper parts like coreless motors of Rs.200-300 each. (No ESC required, driven by PWM through high current MOSFETs like IRF150), 3.7V LiPo battery costing Rs.1000 which can give 15-20 minutes of flight(you can even try button cells), tiny and sturdy frame which can be made at home, tiny propellers of 5-6 cm length of Rs.200-300/set and the same flight controller and radio set mentioned above. All this costs below Rs.7000. Note:Above costs are just estimates. You can get the parts for much cheaper prices by doing some research on hobby sites, Ebay and even visit some shops if in same city(to avoid shipping costs). It took me atleast a month to assess all these details. You can bring down the net cost to about Rs.5000.

To see how small a quadcopter can be search for "Husban H107L", "Micro Aerial Vehicles by DARPA, MIT, University of Pennsylvania's GRASP lab flying swarm robots".

However, there's a catch:
Coreless motors and short propellers are a bit hard to get. If you can, buy four small vibration motors(ones you find in mobile) and remove the uncentered masses from their shafts if you can(those cling on tight). Propellers....... searching is only option(make sure you buy perfect ones made with good quality plastic). There is good chance that motor's shaft may not fit with propeller's hole size, so buy propellers with hole adapters that help you to insert shaft tight enough.

Talking about flight controller, if you are really serious about 'how quadcopters fly' you should learn the theory behind its stable flight like motion algorithms, embedded control, sensor data acquisition and flight dynamics. You can make a flight controller with self-written firmware and add your own choice of sensors(apart from accelerometer, gyro) and even GPS at bare minimum cost. 

Obviously, I cannot explain the working and circuitry here as there are many websites you can look up to. Just google what you want.

Please comment if you want to say or ask something.

Goutham

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Hey!

I completed another two games last weekend.

Call of Duty 4: Modern warfare
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series is must for any game freak. Playing them, I got aware of many technologies and jargon military uses. Though its old, I found it interesting and had great time playing. The best part is you get hit from blocks away and can't spot who did that soon. I don't know how far the gameplay is close to real life combat but the game tests your reflexes well.

Also it had the best music tracks I ever found for a game till now!

The story line and its twists are amazing esp. that of MW2.

Goutham

The Analemma

Hello!

In past, I forgot to mention something exciting I did. It was a time taking experiment suggested by my astronomy mentor back in 10th grade. I am really proud of this super attempt I did back then.

I showed exceptional interest in astronomy at my high school. I was well known for it everywhere. Once I had video conference with my club members at Hyderabad. The other end was speaking from Delhi, from an astronomy club called SPACE. After my presentation was over, they suggested me to try something out that would make be feel great exactly an year after.

The actual thing to do was simple. Fix a sturdy pole on flat surface for undisturbed for a year. Mark the tip the shadow it casts once a week at a fixed time. Here I did it every Sunday at 1 pm and 3 pm. It sounded easy, but maintaining the excitement constant is not.

I made a checklist for ticking all things like 'done', 'bad weather', 'postponed to next day'. You can do it the next day if you miss. All we need is the continuous pattern at end of the year. Enamel colors painted with soft brush are best as they start peeling only after two years. Below is my success captured.

1 pm Analemma in red and 3 pm in green along with the checklist. The right top is north pointing.

Top view: you can see the dates and months with 3 pm. The same dates correspond with 1 pm also. The top is north pointing.

The 3 pm Analemma. This is huge. The top is north pointing.

The trick is to follow position of the Sun in sky at a fixed time every day and see how it changes. The changes are due to virtue of rotation and revolution of earth and this is why we get summer solstice and winter solstice every year(Earth's rotational axis remains fixed while revolution carries on, thus north and south hemispheres face the Sun turn by turn). For instance, notice June third week at the bottom. this is about when we have summer solstice. Similarly for December third week at top for winter solstice.

Talking about equinoxes, since I stayed in Hyderabad then (latitude: 17.36N) and equinoxes come twice a year i.e. March 20 and September 23, you can notice that these two dates are northward from center by the same distance (by center I mean intersection of '8'). Cool! Isn't it?

Goutham

Something is wrong

Hello!

Again I am feeling the same loneliness I was 2 months ago. This is
real torture since you feel like doing something but won't be even
able to move away from your couch. Your body remains motionless for
hours, you sleep for 12 hours (did that last night).

That's why I am writing these disturbing thoughts down. I had four
holidays. The first two days went excellent with lots of activity. the
next day went by in room itself with useless thoughts. Today is fourth
day and I am trying to cope with it. Efficiency is key to life.

I have all resources to do anything, time to spend without any hurry.
If I like what I do then why am I hesitating to do that?

I agree that lethargy affects even astronauts as a symptom of
prolonged absence of gravity. That is why they keep exercising and run
treadmill with bungee attached to waist. Let us not give in to
lethargy. Its the ultimate enemy of human worth on this planet.

#FightLethargy

Goutham

12 days after

Enough vacation updates

Now I am 15 days into 4th semester and have many things to do. Now I
am feeling more serious about life. There is no time to be wasted.
Every minute is precious.

Along with this I am collaborating with a aero-enthusiast friend of
mine, Biswadip to make a dream come true: a homemade RC plane fully
made from scratch. I will soon upload the fabrication photos here.

Project Quadcopter is underway. for that I am learning embedded C bit
by bit. It will take sometime for me to write my own firmware needed
for stabilization through PID method.

Goutham

Vacation update #3

Hello!

The new year has kicked in a new level of excitement in me. This is me
writing on last day of the one-month vacation and now I am back in my
college hostel. Its good to be back.

This time I have no resolutions to speak about. Everything and
anything will be implemented and done quickly. Let me update you of
what happened since the last post.

My parents approved budget for making a quadcopter, so I bought a
Hobbyking 6 channel 2.4GHz transmitter and receiver along with USB to
UART converter. It has to be programmed through computer, so I tested
it with DigitalRadio software, It worked. Next I need to learn the PID
algorithm from someone in my college experienced with this stuff.

Still learning AVR C and arduino programming along with several
protocols to download all data from sensors to microcontroller and
even display them on serial interface on PC.

I am proud to be a part of my team competing for the annual Cansat
competition to be held in Texas this year.

Always learning
Goutham