Tools Hack Daily

Monday, May 1, 2017

Robot vs. Volcano: “Sometimes It’s Just Fun to Blow Stuff Up” #robotics

“Sharkcano.” It’s not the title of some campy summer blockbuster, but rather a real-world phenomenon that went viral in 2015, when scientists on a National Geographic expedition found sharks living inside one of the most active underwater volcanoes on Earth. Not surprisingly, the team was eager to go back and learn more, but how do you explore an environment that could easily kill you? You send in robots, of course.

“Our goal is to send instrumentation there to get meaningful data, but sometimes it’s really fun to just blow stuff up,” says National Geographic explorer and ocean engineer Brennan Phillips.

Brennan reunited with his 2015 expedition mates—Alistair Grinham of University of Queensland and Matthew Dunbabin of Queensland University of Technology and Director of GFB Robotics—to once again venture about 20 miles off the coast of the Solomon Islands to the Pacific Ocean’s violent Kavachi volcano.

Robot vs. Volcano: “Sometimes It’s Just Fun to Blow Stuff Up” #robotics

Via National Geographic on YouTube

“Sharkcano.” It’s not the title of some campy summer blockbuster, but rather a real-world phenomenon that went viral in 2015, when scientists on a National Geographic expedition found sharks living inside one of the most active underwater volcanoes on Earth. Not surprisingly, the team was eager to go back and learn more, but how do you explore an environment that could easily kill you? You send in robots, of course.

“Our goal is to send instrumentation there to get meaningful data, but sometimes it’s really fun to just blow stuff up,” says National Geographic explorer and ocean engineer Brennan Phillips.

Brennan reunited with his 2015 expedition mates—Alistair Grinham of University of Queensland and Matthew Dunbabin of Queensland University of Technology and Director of GFB Robotics—to once again venture about 20 miles off the coast of the Solomon Islands to the Pacific Ocean’s violent Kavachi volcano.

How NASA Visualizes Stunning Worlds Without Really Seeing Them

Images of space and distant galaxies are all over the internet, but where do they come from? This piece in WIRED shows how raw data becomes art.

EVERYONE LIKES A good space photo. They’re colorful, they’re otherworldly, they make an inoffensive desktop background. And that’s not to trivialize them: Artists’ renderings of exoplanets are gorgeous, imaginative visions of what it might look like to live your life circling another star, and they’re devilishly tricky to make.

Images sure don’t come straight out of space telescope looking press-release ready. Each visualization is the result of artists and planetary scientists collaborating to convert blips on a data readout into something that looks like a planet—all while remaining scientifically plausible. It’s a tricky balancing act that doesn’t always go smoothly. But the illustrations are genuinely useful. They don’t just get regular people fired up about exoplanets, they help scientists working on the systems articulate their work’s importance. And in the incredibly expensive field of space science, you’ve got to be exciting to get funded.

How To Not Break A Mars Rover

Tom Scott visits the Mars Yard! Video here.

The Mars Yard, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is one of the closest simulations of Mars that we’ve got. Admittedly, there’s a bit more atmosphere and gravity, but it’s the only way to test what might happen before sending commands to a rover that’s light-minutes away.

How NASA Visualizes Stunning Worlds Without Really Seeing Them

Images of space and distant galaxies are all over the internet, but where do they come from? This piece in WIRED shows how raw data becomes art.

EVERYONE LIKES A good space photo. They’re colorful, they’re otherworldly, they make an inoffensive desktop background. And that’s not to trivialize them: Artists’ renderings of exoplanets are gorgeous, imaginative visions of what it might look like to live your life circling another star, and they’re devilishly tricky to make.

Images sure don’t come straight out of space telescope looking press-release ready. Each visualization is the result of artists and planetary scientists collaborating to convert blips on a data readout into something that looks like a planet—all while remaining scientifically plausible. It’s a tricky balancing act that doesn’t always go smoothly. But the illustrations are genuinely useful. They don’t just get regular people fired up about exoplanets, they help scientists working on the systems articulate their work’s importance. And in the incredibly expensive field of space science, you’ve got to be exciting to get funded.

DIY Camera Trap for Animal Photography

via blog.arduino.cc

If you’d like to photograph wildlife without actually being there to scare the animals off (or because you would eventually get bored), a great solution is a camera trap. These devices can trigger a camera when animals move nearby, hopefully capturing interesting images. Generally, you need to point your camera in the right direction, but Quitmeyer got around this by using a 360 camera instead to eliminate this placement bias.

The Drone Girl’s 6 Favorite Drone Communities #drone #droneday

Handy list from The Drone Girl:

Looking to connect with people in the drone world? It can be tricky to find dronies out in the world, but there are loads of online drone communities for any type of drone pilot. Are you a photographer? How about a policy wonk? Just looking to make some friends? There is an online community for you.

Of course there are plenty of other great news sites, blogs, Twitter accounts and IRL (in real life) drone communities to join. But for now, here are some of my favorite online drone communities (listed in no particular order):

UAV Coach Community forum: This is one of my favorite forums for active discussion on general drone questions. The forums are broken down by industry, type of drone and more. The community forum is run by Drone Pilot Ground School creator Alan Perlman.

NODE – A Drone Pilots Advocacy Group: For people interested in law and policy around drones, the Network of Drone Enthusiasts (NODE) is a fairly new grassroots group dedicated to representing drone pilots across the U.S. and Canada. While the FAA regulates the airspace in the U.S., many cities, counties and states have implemented additional regulations which can be difficult for drone pilots, and sometimes even conflict with FAA rules. The group is intended to give drone organizations a voice to collaborate with local legislators on developing reasonable and effective drone regulations that encourage drone use while protecting public safety. It’s worth noting that this group was launched by drone manufacturer DJI, which means there is likely some bias behind the intent of the group (to make sure you’re able to buy more of their drones, of course!).

Check out the full list!

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.