Famous Last Words: John-Paul Burke Week 2

This week, the work I was most proud of was my story writing for this class.  When I started this class, I did not expect to be able to bring such informal writing experience as I have with a Dungeons and Dragons to this class, so that definitely was a surprise.  It was a major step up, however, converting the sparse note keeping and plot branches I am used to writing into a singular, cohesive story.  Instead of having to prepare for the vagaries of other humans, the characters in the usual campaign story, I was able to make them do exactly what I wanted in the story, making everything much simpler to handle and write about. 

Outside of this class, the other main event of the week was completing more of my masters research project.  My team and I were able to complete the design and construction of a prototype of an arm extension mechanism.  The purpose of this mechanism is to allow two arms of a drone to extend and rotate, allowing flight in the "horizontal" direction without having to tilt the whole drone, as is the usual procedure in drone flight. 

For other classwork, the main project was completing the final aircraft design for the University of Oklahoma's Design Build Fly team, Crimson Skies.  This required the creation of a complete computer aided drafting design of the aircraft, with every piece in there, from the wings to the wires.  I specifically worked on the control surfaces, which are the parts of the aircraft that move and provide the moments causing maneuvers in flight.  While only a small part of the aircraft, they need to be precisely modeled in order to meet the aerodynamic requirements to avoid too much or too little force.  This CAD design process was painstaking for the whole team, requiring hundreds of man hours, and will be a massive relief to be finished with this weekend. 

Hexrotor drone with Camera Mount, from Alexander Ginz on Wikipedia