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

Vacation update #2

Hello!

The cut in right toe is healing with flesh grown and it takes five to six months for the nail to grow back. Three weeks went by and I am walking free. Bought another Atmega328 and USBasp programmer. Had to troubleshoot several issues. 

In this gap since last post did lot of reading about PCB layout and fabrication, sensors, interfacing, avrdude. Now learning EAGLE and need to run few programs in the chip and buy some stuff.

Goutham