Android logs with ADT (LogCat)

The LogCat view is on by default in the Debug perspective. I noticed that even when I'm not debugging the view is getting updates from the application running in the emulator. I added the LogCat view to my Java perspective so I can see it anytime.



In the clip above, you can see that the LogCat view defaults in with the Problems, Console, and other views in the bottom-right. I like it there. The second column in the view shows the logging level; this level comes from the method called on the Log object. Here are the clips from my code that correspond to the 'I' messages.

Log.i("ListBuckets", "Setting up grid.");
GridView g = (GridView) findViewById(R.id.bucket_list);
g.setAdapter(new ImageAdapter(this, mBucketsDb.fetchAllBuckets()));

Above, I used just a plain string for the 'tag'; this seems like the common approach in the Android sample code. Below, I went to my more normal use of using the class as the tag.

public void onCreate(SQLiteDatabase db) {
 Log.i(BucketsDbAdapter.class.toString(), "Creating fresh database.");
 db.execSQL(DATABASE_CREATE);

To add the LogCat view to the Java perspective:
1. open the workspace that houses your projects
2. Window -> Show View -> Other...
3. expand the Android tree node and select LogCat

Ike learning to IM

Isaac is 8 now so he is anxious to get online. He started using Pidgin yesterday and he's doing great. Here's a clip - he's even using smiley's :)

sqlite3 cli

Android gets better and better! I had a few minutes tonight to take a look at my current Android app and wanted to check the state of the DB. Expecting to find nothing, I Googled sqlite cli android and found that there are 2 methods. Beauty.

Term in Emulator

I thought that this would be the coolest but it was actually a paid because the UID is not root. The end result is that there are annoying permissions issues. It was pretty fun to be able to use the Term to check the DB:

Shell via ADB

jjohnson:~ jjohnson$ adb shell
# cd /data/data/org.mrtidy.nb2db1/databases
# sqlite3 data.db
SQLite version 3.5.9
Enter ".help" for instructions
sqlite> .tables
bucket
sqlite> select * from bucket;
0|testing 0|3|
1|testing|42|2009-05-05
3|testing 3|55|2009-05-0
5|testing null|66|
6|moo|4|
sqlite> 

learned a few things about Ubuntu and VirtualBox

My main goal tonight was to get through the different layout samples to get a better grasp on layout in Android. Unfortunately, work leaked so I had to do some Ubuntu and VirtualBox configuration. Turned out to be pretty interesting and reminded me how much I like Ubuntu.

I set up a VM instance - this was fine, went as normal. The new part here was that I wanted to use VBox snapshots. Once the VM was prepared, I exported the config and HD image to put on our filer system as part of my usual process. After the traditional style backup was done, I tried creating a Snapshot of the VM. Assuming the snapshots work, they're might simple: you get to give each snapshot a name and description. There are options to delete snapshots, remove current config, and a few other things.

As part of the preparation of the VM, I had to set up an application launcher in the VM image. I've done launchers before but this was a little new because I wanted the launcher on the desktop but the actual scripts within the home directory structure. The problem I hit was that the main script used relative paths to reference other scripts. The solution to my issue was here. I had assumed "cd {abs directory}; ./{script}" but it has to be 'sh -c "cd {abs directory} && ./{script}"'. Huh.

I set both the host and guest instances to perform Auto-Login to be easy for the line setup. In the host, I added a Startup Application to auto-start my guest. This reminds me how much I like VirtualBox: VBoxManage has lots of different options that I've found useful. In this case, I do 'Command: VBoxManage startvm "gateway configuration station"'. Since the VM is configured for full-screen, I ultimately end up at the desired UI after powering on the physical box. Good stuff!

Back on the Android stuff, I was pleased there as well: started bumping into the design surfaces in ADT and they look helpful, used the Debug perspective with an Android app running in the emulator (and breakpoints worked :)), and Android will deal with about anything for the icons.

first Android app

Google provides great tools to get started. The guys at work are Maven fanboys so they referred to a couple Maven-Android projects to use. I followed their lead and took the time to set up Masa but that was a total waste of time. The first part below is how a normal person should write the Hello World app and then the second part is how to get Masa set up, just in case you too are a Maven fanboy (or fangirl). There are some notes at the very end about using Eclipse / ADT but I think writing the first app with the Android tools is helpful.

Android Tools

Step 1: Download Android SDK

Go to the Android SDK Download page and get the SDK. For the Mac, it is a ZIP file so I downloaded and unzipped and then edited ~/.bash_login to add ANDROID_SDK and put $ANDROID_SDK/tools in my path.

Step 2: Create an AVD

To be able to test apps, you need to set up an Android Virtual Device. As you get familiar, you'll probably have multiple AVD but create an API level 3 AVD to get started. I called my AVD basic. The steps below show me creating it and then starting it.

$ android create avd -n basic -t 3
Created AVD 'basic' based on Google APIs (Google Inc.)
$ emulator @basic

At this point, I see a window with a red phone. The screen on the phone is blank.

Step 3: Create an App and Install

I called my app buckets and the main activity is called BucketOverviewActivity. The android create call writes out a template project and sets up the initial metadata. Everything is valid as-is so you can go straight from there to compile and install the app.

$ cd ~/projects
$ mkdir buckets
$ cd buckets
$ android create project --target 2 --path . --activity BucketOverviewActivity --package com.unknown.buckets
$ ant debug install

After the install step, the phone appears to turn on and the app is now available. The name of the app is BucketOverviewActivity and when I click on that I see the Hello World.

Masa Setup

The Masa Web site appears to be stale and a different Maven project in GoogleCode has intentionally gone stale claiming that they are merging with Masa. I think that the problem is that the Ant tools provided with Android are good enough. Anyway, I spent all the time to get Masa setup so I may as well pass the info along.

Do the steps 1 and 2 above to get the Android SDK installed and in your PATH and to prepare an Emulator. Next, install Android JARs into the local Maven repository.

mvn -X install:install-file -Dfile=/usr/local/android//platforms/android-1.5/android.jar -DgeneratePom=true -DgroupId=android -DartifactId=android -Dversion=1.5_r1 -Dpackaging=jar
mvn -X install:install-file -Dfile=/usr/local/android//platforms/android-1.1/android.jar -DgeneratePom=true -DgroupId=android -DartifactId=android -Dversion=1.1_r1 -Dpackaging=jar


At this point, you can pull the Masa source and install Masa into the local repository.

cd ~/oss
svn co http://masa.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ masa
cd masa
mvn install


Finally, you can take the sample pom.xml from the Masa Web site, update the versions, and put it into your project directory (that already has a find build.xml file for Ant) and use mvn.

Eclipse / ADT

The Android Developers Web site has great information for getting started with Eclipse and the Android Developer Tools plugin. Some parts that I think are important are that the code-path to create a new project using ADT is different than just using the Android tools. It isn't a real big deal but the best way to get a decent build script for a build machine is to use the Android create tool. I did find that I could drop a build.xml, build.properties, local.properties, and default.properties into the project directory of an Eclipse-created project and it built and behaved as I expected.

I tried Export -> Ant Build Files but that was terrible. Use android create at least once to get the good scripts. Once you get good build scripts, it would probably be smart to tell Eclipse to only use the Ant build script that was put in place but I'm going to live on the wild side and use the IDE build when doing interactive dev and Ant for 'real' builds.

ADT provides a graphical tool for managing the virtual devices, automatically assumed debug keys on Run As, and has the usual benefits of syntax highlighting and refactoring. There isn't an integrated tool for managing the emulators, that I have seen; that means that once an emulator is started, I have to kill it outside the IDE if it needs to be killed. Along the same lines, I've had a case where the IDE wouldn't start a new emulator but there was one running and ready to take an application image.

the hard way to get SMS messages in app

My epiphany today was that SMS would be the easiest way to capture expenses like gas and groceries. That's funny, seriously. I decided to see how difficult it would be to get SMS messages into an app. Since I recently set up a Skype account with SkypeIn, I figured I'd see if SkypeIn could accept SMS. In short, it doesn't appear to (still).

The Skype APIs are brilliantly trivial so within a couple minutes of downloading the Python version of the API I had this script running to send my real phone a test SMS message.

import Skype4Py

def OnAttach(status):
  print 'API attachment status: ' + skype.Convert.AttachmentStatusToText(status)

  if status == Skype4Py.apiAttachAvailable:
    skype.Attach()

skype = Skype4Py.Skype()
skype.OnAttachmentStatus = OnAttach

print 'Connecting to Skype...'
skype.Attach()

message = skype.CreateSms(Skype4Py.smsMessageTypeOutgoing, '+15555551234')
message.Body = "Hello from sendSms.py"
message.Send()

That works - I set a real phone number where the 5555551234 is and the real phone gets the SMS instantly. Since I was sure the API was functioning correctly, I tried reading SMS messages. I could see SMS messages so from a real phone I sent an SMS to my SkypeIn number.

Neither Skype (the GUI client) nor the API could see the incoming SMS so I did a little reading and found that landlines are used for SkypeIn so incoming SMS is not an option. I read that there is a company that provides free SMS routing to Skype accounts. The format is 'skype account name message'. Skype then receives the SMS as an Instant Message. I tried it out by sending 'skype mrtidy test another from iPhone' and did get the Instant Message.

import Skype4Py

skype = Skype4Py.Skype()
skype.Attach()

for sms in skype.Smss:
  print sms.Type + ' SMS: ' + sms.Body

for chat in skype.Chats:
  print chat.Type + ' Chat'
  for message in chat.Messages:
    print 'Message: ' + message.Body

Using the code above, I can now see that I have received the SMS message:

OUTGOING SMS: short message from python
OUTGOING SMS: Hello from sendSms.py
OUTGOING SMS: 
OUTGOING SMS: test with the 1 in it
OUTGOING SMS: 
OUTGOING SMS: testing sms from skype
DIALOG Chat
Message: "test another from iPhone [ SMS to Skype message from +15555551234 ]"
Message: 
Message: 
MULTICHAT Chat

I'm pretty bummed about SkypeIn being landline and having no real option for receiving SMS. I thought about my fundamental problem and I could set up a private twitter account specifically for tracking the expenses that we make while out but I'd really prefer SMS or email. The SMS attraction was that it is just 2 fields which makes sense; email has a subject field which is unnecessary for this task.

setting up personal wikimedia

I'm a huge fan of Confluence since I get to use it at work and have gotten real familiar with it. Unfortunately, there isn't a personal version of it, that I can find, so for setting up a wiki for personal use I have to turn to something else. I have experience with a few but I'd say my second favorite is wikimedia. Wikimedia has everything I need - this is mainly for Greg and I to keep track of our rocket info like propellants and nozzle info.

yum install php
yum install mysql
yum install mysql-server
/etc/init.d/mysql start
mysqladmin -u root password '###'
yum install php-gd
yum install php-mysql
cd /var/www/html
tar xzf ~/wiki*tar.gz
ln -s wikimedia-* wikimedia
chown -R apache:apache wikimedia*
http://192.168.0.25/wikimedia/config/

Admin username: admin
Password: ###

Database name: rockets_wiki
Database username: rockets_wiki
Database password: ###

That is looking good and the wiki is ready to start using solely through a browser; however, it isn't externally available yet. Since all traffic on port 80 currently forwards from my firewall to an IIS instance, I need to set up a reverse proxy to forward the traffic on from IIS to the internal Linux server hosting wikimedia. I haven't finished setting up the reverse proxy but below are the links that I've been working from. Note that ARR is only avaiable for II7, which I don't have, so it is mostly informational about what I wish I had.

http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/489/using-the-application-request-routing-module/
http://iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1709

http://urlrewriter.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=22618
http://urlrewriter.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=38437

moving to jQuery 1.3

I'm finally migrating a site with the ancient jQuery 1.1.4 library (!) to jQuery 1.3. To say I'm excited is a gross understatement. The jQuery team continually blow my mind with smart features and approaches to solve problems. I'm interested in all the features but in particular, I'm anxious to see how the 'no browser sniffing' will work out in the long run. Good stuff.

http://docs.jquery.com/Release:jQuery_1.3

HP puts VT Flag in OS Security

At work we have an HP dc5750 machine that we want to put some HVM VMs on. The processor in the machine is an AMD 4450B that technically supports AMD-V. After installing Xen and booting the machine we found that HVM was not enabled in Xen so we had to go digging around. We looked through all the sensible BIOS options a few times and upgraded the BIOS to the latest version and then finally in frustration looked in the OS Security section and there it was - Virtualization was Disabled.

Awesome is understatement

Here's something geeky: See's Awesome Nut & Chew Bar. Wowsers those are good - why aren't they available in stores?

indirection and perf

This recent post by Phil Windley had a great paragraph in it about indirection and performance.

You know the saying “there’s no Computer Science problem that can’t be solved with a layer of indirection.” In homage to that, our solution is to redirect from a static URL to the timestamped filename. That’s not ideal, but it works. The downside is the other half of that homily: “there’s no performance problem that can’t be solved by eliminating a layer of indirection.” Still, our measurements show that the price we’re paying isn’t too high.

Good stuff. We all know it - he just has an amusing way of saying it.

Terminal Settings

Exported Terminal settings:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
 <key>BackgroundColor</key>
 <data>
 YnBsaXN0MDDUAQIDBAUGCQpYJHZlcnNpb25UJHRvcFkkYXJjaGl2ZXJYJG9iamVjdHMS
 AAGGoNEHCFRyb290gAFfEA9OU0tleWVkQXJjaGl2ZXKjCwwTVSRudWxs0w0ODxARElYk
 Y2xhc3NcTlNDb2xvclNwYWNlVU5TUkdCgAIQAU8QLzAuMDk4MDM5MjE3IDAuMDk4MDM5
 MjE3IDAuMDk4MDM5MjE3IDAuODk5OTk5OTgA0hQVFhdYJGNsYXNzZXNaJGNsYXNzbmFt
 ZaIXGFdOU0NvbG9yWE5TT2JqZWN0CBEaHykyNzo/QVNXXWRreH6AgrS5ws3Q2AAAAAAA
 AAEBAAAAAAAAABkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADh
 </data>
 <key>CursorBlink</key>
 <true/>
 <key>CursorColor</key>
 <data>
 YnBsaXN0MDDUAQIDBAUGCQpYJHZlcnNpb25UJHRvcFkkYXJjaGl2ZXJYJG9iamVjdHMS
 AAGGoNEHCFRyb290gAFfEA9OU0tleWVkQXJjaGl2ZXKjCwwTVSRudWxs0w0ODxARElYk
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 U09iamVjdAgRGh8pMjc6P0FTV11ka3h+gIKmq7S/wsoAAAAAAAABAQAAAAAAAAAZAAAA
 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA0w==
 </data>
 <key>CursorType</key>
 <integer>0</integer>
 <key>Font</key>
 <data>
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 bGVNb25v0hcYGRpYJGNsYXNzZXNaJGNsYXNzbmFtZaIaG1ZOU0ZvbnRYTlNPYmplY3QI
 ERofKTI3Oj9BU1heZ251fIWHkJKUn6StuLvCAAAAAAAAAQEAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAA
 AAAAAAAAAMs=
 </data>
 <key>FontAntialias</key>
 <false/>
 <key>Linewrap</key>
 <true/>
 <key>SelectionColor</key>
 <data>
 YnBsaXN0MDDUAQIDBAUGCQpYJHZlcnNpb25UJHRvcFkkYXJjaGl2ZXJYJG9iamVjdHMS
 AAGGoNEHCFRyb290gAFfEA9OU0tleWVkQXJjaGl2ZXKjCwwTVSRudWxs0w0ODxARElYk
 Y2xhc3NcTlNDb2xvclNwYWNlVU5TUkdCgAIQAUYxIDEgMQDSFBUWF1gkY2xhc3Nlc1ok
 Y2xhc3NuYW1lohcYV05TQ29sb3JYTlNPYmplY3QIERofKTI3Oj9BU1ddZGt4foCCiY6X
 oqWtAAAAAAAAAQEAAAAAAAAAGQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALY=
 </data>
 <key>TextBoldColor</key>
 <data>
 YnBsaXN0MDDUAQIDBAUGCQpYJHZlcnNpb25UJHRvcFkkYXJjaGl2ZXJYJG9iamVjdHMS
 AAGGoNEHCFRyb290gAFfEA9OU0tleWVkQXJjaGl2ZXKjCwwTVSRudWxs0w0ODxARElYk
 Y2xhc3NcTlNDb2xvclNwYWNlVU5TUkdCgAIQAU8QITAuODAwMDAwMDEgMC44MDAwMDAw
 MSAwLjgwMDAwMDAxANIUFRYXWCRjbGFzc2VzWiRjbGFzc25hbWWiFxhXTlNDb2xvclhO
 U09iamVjdAgRGh8pMjc6P0FTV11ka3h+gIKmq7S/wsoAAAAAAAABAQAAAAAAAAAZAAAA
 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA0w==
 </data>
 <key>TextColor</key>
 <data>
 YnBsaXN0MDDUAQIDBAUGCQpYJHZlcnNpb25UJHRvcFkkYXJjaGl2ZXJYJG9iamVjdHMS
 AAGGoNEHCFRyb290gAFfEA9OU0tleWVkQXJjaGl2ZXKjCwwTVSRudWxs0w0ODxARElYk
 Y2xhc3NcTlNDb2xvclNwYWNlVU5TUkdCgAIQAU8QITAuODAwMDAwMDEgMC44MDAwMDAw
 MSAwLjgwMDAwMDAxANIUFRYXWCRjbGFzc2VzWiRjbGFzc25hbWWiFxhXTlNDb2xvclhO
 U09iamVjdAgRGh8pMjc6P0FTV11ka3h+gIKmq7S/wsoAAAAAAAABAQAAAAAAAAAZAAAA
 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA0w==
 </data>
 <key>name</key>
 <string>Homebrew</string>
 <key>shellExitAction</key>
 <integer>1</integer>
 <key>type</key>
 <string>Window Settings</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Are those serialized objects storing the color info? Huh.

Launch Log 2008.12.07

The weather was nearly perfect and we launched around 20 rockets (we = Greg M, Isaac, Spencer, and me). I lost an unfinished Mighty Mouse: great launch on a C but went north and landed in the pond. The Westminster police stopped by to tell us we technically weren't supposed to be there but they weren't telling us to leave; the policy is that if someone complains they'll come tell us to leave.



We launched Isaac's Rainbow Machine and Greg launched his own Mean Machine. Both did great on D12's.



People stopped to watch and these girls came and played for quite a while. Fun to see so many people interested in rocketry.

still a fan of stack overflow podcast

Around episode 10 of the Stack Overflow podcast, Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood sync'd up and became great. I had been an occasional reader of Coding Horror and Joel on Software but never much of a fan. Around episode 20 of the Stack Overflow podcast, Joel and Jeff got too comfortable and they're risking falling apart like Carl at DNR or Scott on Hanselminutes but I'm still a fan.

It may take a major problem with the Stack Overflow site of FogBugz to get the show back to the super-interesting level. Right now, Jeff settling in to thinking that Stack Overflow is a success and he's got it all figured out and Joel is just there for the ride. They are thinking that bringing on guests will keep the show interesting but I think the attraction to the show has been that they were dealing with real technical problems and differences on how they would address them throughout the cycle of building Stack Overflow. If there aren't any major disasters with Stack Overflow or FogBugz then they should probably stop doing the podcast or start writing a new product.

Some Winter Project

Kelly J mentioned once that he was converting his mower to electric. I just mowed the lawn and got to thinking about his project. I figured it'd be pretty expensive but was curious what was involved.

Here's an interesting article about someone that did the conversion. $212 for the conversion - impressive. I get the impression that this article inspired the build-it-solar article.

Al Gore invented Global Warming

I listened to an interview about 5 years ago where Bob Metcalfe or Vint Cerf was tributing Al Gore for pushing hard on congress to fund the Information Super-highway. The direct result was increased funding, and I believe the 5 node backbone between the super-computing centers and then ultimately the Internet as we know it today. I cringe when people still joke about Al Gore saying he invented the Internet - I haven't heard his words, but it seems like he's allowed to take some significant credit.

It just struck me, as I was reading about the plastic / nanotube solar panels, that we'll probably be hearing in 5 years people saying that Al Gore invented Global Warming. It'll make me cringle but perhaps it'll have the same amount of truth: it sure seems like clean tech has boomed following his moving on the environment.

I'm no big fan of Al Gore - just had the thought...

Launch Log 2008.09.02

Chris Murdock organized a small community launch on Aug 2nd. Isaac, Spencer, and I went and enjoyed flying a bunch of rockets and watching a lot of other flights.

The Rainbow Machine had a beautiful flight on an Aerotech E15. The winds were calm so the flight was straight and the rocket landed about 10 yards from the launch pad. The Purple Rhino II had a great flight on 5 Estes A10 motors. I used flash-in-the-pan for ignition and clearly had plenty of powder in the pan!

• Rainbow Machine (E15) - perfect flight, correct delay, landed near pad


• Alpha III (A8) - first flight, early ejection


• Explorer (E9) - great flight, very high, delay (6) too long, nearly landed on pad


• Mighty Mouse III (B6) - first flight, bit of a spin, correct delay


• Purple Rhino II (5x A10) - first flight, too much powder in pan, very straight

Don't Make Me Think!

I'm not a Web designer but I decided to Don't Make Me Think! because I could just read and think about the content while traveling. I've found most of the content insightful and this particular bit gives a glimpse of why I like the book.

And the worst thing about the myth of the Average User is that it reinforces the idea that good Web design is largely a matter of figuring out what people like. It's an attractive notion: either pulldowns are good (because most people like them), or they're bad (because most people don't). You should have links to everything in the site on the Home page, or you shouldn't.

Heh - the Average User - I hate it when the Average User comes up at work because it is the same thing: it is the dev / PM / etc. claiming they know what the Average User wants so they can enforce their agenda.

The point is, it's not productive to ask questions like "Do most people like pulldown menus?" The right kind of question to ask is "Does this pulldown, with these items and this wording in this context on this page create a good experience for most people who are likely to use this site?"

Good point - seems like that could apply to the code / end-user issues as well.

posting family / hobby videos

We hope to be posting more videos on our blogs in the future, so we need to work out a good process and format for converting and posting the videos. Flash video files are becoming very common and are handled nicely in most browsers (pretty much everything but the iPhone as far as I can tell) so that seems like a good starting point.

SWF or FLV
The Adobe Flash movie player plugin expects SWF files but the FLV files are better for us because they can stream out to the player. The reason to point that out is that if you look at the excellent Adobe documentation for object / embed for the Flash movie player, you only see the movie parameter pointing to an SWF file. I chose a nice looking embeddable FLV player from advanced flash components to be the SWF file that streams / plays the FLV files in the blog posts.

ffmpeg or mencoder
Our camera produces HD videos at 1280x720 pixels and the files are pretty large. I tried 2 different tools to convert the large .mov file to .flv:

ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i P1010013.MOV -acodec libmp3lame -ab 64k -f flv -b 800000 -r 30 -s 400x225 -aspect 16:9 ravioli.flv

mencoder:
mencoder P1010013.MOV -o ravioli.flv -of lavf -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=56 -ovc lavc -lavcopts \
vcodec=flv:vbitrate=600:mbd=2:mv0:trell:v4mv:keyint=10:cbp:last_pred=3:aspect=16/9 -vf scale=400:225 -srate 22050

I've used ffmpeg more in the past so I intended to use it for this; however, the basic options above resulted in a lot of popping in the resulting .flv file. I started reading about the audio codecs and tried a few different settings but decided to try a basic config for mencoder that I was familiar with. I think that either of the above could be improved: ffmpeg could get audio fixed or mencoder could ensure that the aspect ratio gets coded into the video info.

Preview Image
In the case of the ravioli video, I didn't like the default preview image so I generated a series of jpegs and used MS Paint to scroll through the images until I found one I liked.

mplayer:
mplayer.exe ravioli.flv -nosound -vo jpeg

Embedding the Video
To get the video into a Web page, we just need to invoke the player and tell it what .flv file to use. We currently have the .flv files on our regular blog server; in the future, I'd like those moved to AWS or some similar content network.

object / embed:

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"
  codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0"
  width="400" height="225" align="middle">
  <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
  <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />
  <param name="base" value="/" />
  <param name="movie" value="/AFC_EmbedPlayer.swf" />
  <param name="quality" value="high" />
  <param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" />
  <param name="FlashVars"
    value="flvURL=/moo/ravioli.flv&autoHideControls=true&autoStart=false&previewImageURL=/moo/ravioliPreview.jpg" />
  <embed base="/" src="/AFC_EmbedPlayer.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff"
    width="400" height="225" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain"
    allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
    pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
    FlashVars="flvURL=/moo/ravioli.flv&autoHideControls=true&autoStart=false&previewImageURL=/moo/ravioliPreview.jpg"></embed>
</object>

References

• Embeddable FLV Player


• Flash OBJECT and EMBED tag attributes


• Flash OBJECT and EMBED tag syntax


• Basic usage of MEncoder


• MPlayer


• FFmpeg

where are the electric taxis now?

Cabbie Jacob German was arrested and jailed in New York City May 20, 1899, for driving his electric taxi at the "breakneck speed" of 12 mph.

- from Wired http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/05/dayintech_0521

Sheesh - more than 100 years ago, we had electric taxis racing around the cities. Where are they now?

Mistaking 'Common' and 'Lowest Common'

I'm reading a great book on Ajax: Pragmatic Ajax. There is a lot of great info in the book but this particular quote is what really resonated with me.

Just because everybody is doing it doesn’t make it bad. That kind of logic is just counterintuitive enough to appeal to our old highschool self, whose fascination with The Cure and Metallica was fed by the belief that Phil Collins couldn’t possibly be any good because so darn many people listened to his music.

I don't know why particular bit jumps out at me. Good book - go get it.

One more great clip from that same section of the book:

And for crying out loud, think very, very carefully before you start shaking, puffing, and squishing elements on the screen.

:)

MHM 2008

Northern Colorado Rocketry hosted Mile High Mayhem 2008 was this past weekend. It was a 3-day event but I only went up on Saturday because weather on Friday was horrible and Sunday was a day to stay home with the family.


Lots of cars and campers on the flight line. The second picture shows the people lines: lines were long to get out to the pads. Waiting in line to go set up was a new experience for me. There were 21 active pads (12 low power and 9 high power) but we definitely needed more pads.


There were a lot of great flights but the highlight for me was Greg's launch of his Black Brant. In the first picture you can see us setting up on Pad 4. The second picture is the launch: J350W boosting the rocket to 7012 feet above ground level. Good stuff!

Great Dev Guidelines

I believe it was Scott Hanselman that referenced this post. The title is "This I believe... the developer edition" - funny, and I don't completely agree with it all but it is great to review it before each project to remind yourself to think about some important aspects of the development process.

bummer day at the Atlas site

Northern Colorado Rocketry launches on the first Saturday of every month. In the winter and spring, we launch on the south side of the Pawnee National Grassland; in the summer and fall, we launch on the north side. The north launch site has a much better altitude waiver and very few fences, so it is the preferred site; however, when the ground is soft we risk damaging the environment: the south launch site is paved everywhere - even where we launch the rockets because it is the roof of a retired Atlas missile silo.

The March 1st launch was on a beautiful day. Greg and family went up for a day of launching and I drove up as well. Greg certified Level 1 on his PML Black Brant - a nice kit and excellently built / finished by Greg. I forgot my Tripoli papers, so I couldn't attempt to certify, but I could still fly practice flights.

I flew my Talon 2 on an H128. The Talon 2 is very light so it really popped quickly off the pad. The ideal delay, according to RockSim, would have been 8 seconds but the H128 does 6 or 10 second delays: I went with the 10 second delay so deployment was a couple seconds after apogee. Chute opened fine and the Talon 2 drifted out of site during decent because I used a larger chute than normal to ensure a soft landing. Apparently, the large chute didn't help with the landing because the rocket broke - like completely broke:





Next launch in 34 days - I better get building...

Launch Logs 2008.02.02

Greg and I drove up to the Feb NCR Launch together. It was fun to have a launch buddy to chat with while assembling motors and retrieving rockets. I sim'd 10 flights and arranged for the 1 motor on the list that I didn't have to be brought by the GLR rep. I only got 3 flights in, but they were all great flights!

My first launch was my scariest of the day for me: maiden flight of my Talon 2 on a Road Runner F60. The kit was my most complex kit so far because it has 6 fins (3 lines of 2 fins) and the rear line is on the joint with the boat tail. My simulations said that I should use a 4 second delay but I only had a 7 second delay. Turned out the rocket flew straight (so the fins appear to be aligned okay) and the event was just after apogee (so the 7 second delay was nearly perfect).

At the annual meeting, I bought a Semroc Explorer kit and loved building it. I had its first flight and loved flying the Explorer almost as much as building it. The first flight was on a D12 and it also flew straight and smooth. In fact, I was really impressed with the boost it got from the D12 - I wasn't expecting much since I just wanted to verify the rocket would fly straight but it jump off the pad and went fairly high.

Finally, I launched my repaired Bullet. I cracked a fin and a fillet on my first launch of the Bullet in late 2007. I fiberglassed 2 of the fins to make sure they'd be solid. A G64 sim'd to a respectable 1100 feet so I felt like that would be gentle ride to verify the repair. My plan was to follow up the flight with either an AT H238 or CTI I205. The G64 flight went great but I cracked the fin that hadn't yet been fiberglassed.

After the Bullet flight, we decided to pack up and head home. It was disappointing to crack a fin again, but I was extremely pleased with my flights because all motors ignited properly, all rockets flew straight, and all chutes came out at or shortly after apogee. I had planned to attempt an L1 cert again and to make my first dual-deployment flight; those flights will have to wait until the March launch. I hope that the Thor will be done so I'll be flying 3 high-power kits rather than just the 2 in March.

expanding a VHD

In the past, when my fixed disk was too small, I'd create a new fixed disk and install a fresh copy of WinXP. I'm too busy for that now, so I checked Google to see if there were any hacks to increase the size of a fixed disk. I assumed to find nothing, but I found VHD Resizer. Cool.

VHD Resizer - handy tool for people to use that need to expand a VHD.

At this point, I thought that I'd be able to use Windows tools to expand the C: drive in the VM to use all the space. I opened diskpart and it found all the space but since my partition was the boot partition I couldn't use diskpart. I had to use BootIt NG for the resizing.

BootIt NG - simple partitioning tool.

Unfortunately, BootIt NG didn't come with a standard floppy image (that I could directly capture in VPC) and I didn't know how to create a floppy image so I had to search once more. WinImage was overwhelmingly popular and I tried it - worked great.

WinImage - tool for creating disk images - I used it to create a blank floppy disk to capture in VPC.

In the VPC, I captured the blank floppy image that I created with WinImage. I then used the makedisk app in the BootIt NG download to write the BootIt NG stuff to the floppy. I rebooted the VPC and used the menus to expand the partition to consume all available space and then released the floppy image. Finally, I booted the VPC again and had all the space available as I had hoped.

any 3D movie posters in Denver?

I've not seen full-color holograms nor have I seen a hologram the size of a movie poster. There are now some full-color holographic movie posters around.

Last week, 10 U.S. theaters rolled out full-color 3-D posters with motion and photorealistic detail to promote the movie How She Move. Made by Quebecois company RabbitHoles, the advertisements feature one of the film's characters tearing up the dance floor in an eight-second clip that can be "played" in 3-D by walking from left to right of the poster. Despite the images' slightly transparent quality, what you see is pretty close to the real thing.

...

To produce the imagery, RabbitHoles creates a 3-D computer model of the object that will be turned into a hologram. A virtual camera takes snapshots at different angles, and a software algorithm developed by RabbitHoles calculates how light would bounce off each angle in the scene. The result is up to 1,280 different snapshots, or frames, that not only hold color, distance and angle info, but light patterns as well.

To record the actual hologram onto a sheet of film, the data is sent to a printer that divides each frame into pixels -- a poster-size print can hold up to 700,000. The company then exposes each pixel with red, green and blue pulsed lasers.

-- from New 3-D Technique in Wired

Sounds impressive, but I'd like to see one first-hand.

Starting the kids on the XO

Yesterday was the first day we let the boys play with the XO. Today, we let them play some more and they continue to explore. Isaac and Spencer both really like the video recorder but Isaac spent a surprising amount of time calculating. Blogs and news reports say the keyboard is built for tiny hands, so here is a picture in case you haven't played with one - my hand is on the right.


Luke and I played with our XO's together yesterday and learned about sharing applications and chatting. Sharing applications is very cool, but getting chatting started seemed to be non-trivial. When the applications open, they default to private but can be changed to the neighborhood. When someone in the neighborhood is sharing an application, you can see it in the neighborhood view. For example, Luke shared the word processor app and I clicked on it to join in. We each saw our cursor and the other person's cursor and could edit concurrently.

Above is the network view showing access points and mesh networks in the area - not too exciting here since this is from home. It is an interesting view and I hope to see more systems adopting something similar.


Kinda hard to tell if Spencer is having fun or working but he's doing something and seems interested to continue doing it.

Levitt, Freakonomics

Seth Levine influenced me to 'read' Freakonomics. I actually used OverDrive to listen to the book while working at night. I didn't retain as much as I would focussed purely on a book but I didn't want to completely waste my nights working.

The best part of the book for me was that they would give some surprising or shocking conclusion to something and then they would describe how it came to be. Chapters 1, 2, and 5 were enlightening to spectacular while 3, 4, and 6 were just interesting to me. Chapter 1 was about incentives and cheating, how incentives can go wrong, who cheats, and how cheaters might be caught. Chapter 2 was about information so they detailed a key time in the bringing down of the KKK and considered real estate agent performance.

Do parents really matter? That is the question in Chapter 5 and data shows that the amount of time kids spend watching TV doesn't positively correlate their standardized test scores. In fact, a list of 16 or so issues are considered and I was surprised at others like regular trips to the museum or parents reading daily to the kids don't positively correlate.

Pika Pika

The video below is the first I've heard of Pika Pika. Interesting; creative.



Some of the stuff is clearly flashlights but other stuff looks pixelated - to the point that it seems like the photos were edited with a Koala Pad on a C64. Fun idea though!

We gotta go to the crappy town where I'm a hero.

I bumped into the Hero of Canton clip from Firefly tonight and it gave me some good laughs. Of course, if you aren't a Firefly fan, then it's probably not so fun.



Well done, Joss and crew - that was some great stuff you all created.

That's just freaky.

Read this Wired article: Harvard Physicist Plays Magician With the Speed of Light.

... recently she shot a pulse into one [Bose-Einstein condensate] and stopped it — turning the BEC into a hologram, a sort of matter version of the pulse. Then she transferred that matter waveform into an entirely different BEC nearby — which emitted the original light pulse.

Awesome... and freaky :)

To find out what you don't know, you have to do

Google Alerts informed me of this insightful article. The whole thing is interesting, but the clip that jumped out at me was this:

That's one of the big things I've learned over the past three years at Masten Space Systems - you never know how much you really don't know until you try to find out.

We often talk about the importance of knowing what you know and don't know, but sometimes we forget how to discover what we really don't know. It isn't just about thinking and analyzing.

Solar Power Options

A few years ago, my neighbor offered me solar panels that he wasn't using. I thought that was cool and I looked into what I'd need so I could use them. At the time, I'd need some stuff and batteries - that batteries are more important than the other stuff because they are so expensive.

If the neighbor was still there and was still offering the panels, I'd take them now because it sounds like you don't need batteries now. My understanding, based on a brief discussion with BB, is that Xcel will buy any excess electricity generated so there is no need for batteries any more. Cool - too bad the neighbor moved!

I just read about a new option today on Wired. I was actually enjoying this excellent article, Thanks to Google's Tools, I'm the Most Efficient Time-Waster Ever and then I spotted this article, Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream. Pretty interesting stuff: this new company puts everything in place and you agree to buy your power from them at a fixed rate.

Citizenrē - take a look - interesting.

XO Production Starting / Buy One Get One

I signed up to buy an XO a year or two ago and the time is finally getting close! Production runs of the XO start this month and supposedly we'll be able to buy an XO sometime around Nov 12. To buy an XO, you pay $400 which results in you getting one for yourself and giving one to a child somewhere. More info here.

Yes, they need medicine, food, etc. but help them bridge the technology gap too.

Launch Log 2007.11.03

We only had two launches, but both were great flights. Our first was an Estes Mean Machine, we call it the Rainbow Machine, on an Aerotech E15 motor. It took a second for the rocket to lift off but it then flew straight and higher than I had imagined it would. Our second flight was a Level 1 certification attempt using the Bullet (booster only) on an Aerotech H128W motor. The Bullet flew straight and deployed perfectly at apogee, but had a rough landing invalidating the certification attempt.

The unfortunate landing: by catching the tip of the fin here, it cracked the fin root and will require the joint be soaked in thin epoxy before flying the Bullet again.


Shanelle caught this pretty launch while we were there. This is not one of our rockets but it sure is a nice picture so I'm posting it.

installing mysql and sshd on Ubuntu 7.10

One of my programmers asked me how to install MySQL and SSHd on Ubuntu 7.10. I assumed that it would be Applications -> Add / Remove -> MySQL and SSHd. I learned that Ubuntu 7.10, out of the box, doesn't have the repositories configured for these servers and also that there is a little different approach for services.

Here's what I ended up doing, and I like it:

System -> Administration -> Software Sources
    Ubuntu Software
        X Canonical-supported Open Source software
        X Community-maintained Open Source software
        X Software restricted by copyright or legal issues
    Third-party Software
        X http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu gutsy partner
    Close

Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal
    sudo apt-get install mysql-server
    sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Good stuff.

von Braun, Space Frontier

I definitely read this book again. von Braun covered details about every aspect of space flight at the time: the reason for the countdown starts the book, details about the various types of escape rockets and how they work are covered, different styles of pumping and pressurizing liquid fuels and discussed, and all kinds of other stuff.

Rocketplane Global... XCOR Aerospace...

The two companies that have lingered on my mind since the X Prize Cup have been Rocketplane Global and XCOR Aerospace. I hope that both companies become tremendously successful, but I spend a lot of time wondering if either of the companies can find success.

On the surface, XCOR seems to me to be the most likely company in the new race-to-space to succeed. The things that I see on the surface is that they have a couple rocket planes that actually fly with the rockets, they have developed and patented technologies critical to improving the engines (and others are using the technologies), and they aren't publicly speculating / promising when flights will be available.

XCOR's Xerus should be impressive if they can pull it off. Having built and flown the EZ-Rocket 20+ times and built and flown the next generation, Rocket Racer, it seems that they are evolving and iterating fantasticly.

Rocketplane has all the right people and just dumped the Leer that they've been working on for a couple years. To me, that says that they have no hope - sounds just like a dot-com run by rich kids. On the other hand, they are contracting almost everything out except for the stuff that is truely their core competency.

No matter what happens - those people in those companies are doing some way cool stuff. Good luck to all - yes, I think that it takes some luck to make a successful company.

The purpose of the countdown is to:

Assure maximum safety for flight crews (if any), ground crews, and equipment, while the vehicle is prepared for flight.

Avoid wearing out critical flight or ground equipment by activating it too long before launch.

Enable the launch director to launch at an exact instant - corresponding, say, to a favorable position of celestial objects, or to requirements for orbital rendezvous.

Synchronize launch preparations with supporting operations, such as the readying of radars and tracking cameras, or the setting up of road blocks near the launch site.

- Dr. Wernher von Braun

I think that for many hobby rocketeers with kids, that last bit may need to be changed to, "Synchronize launch preparations with supporting operations, such as the rounding up of the kids, the covering of the little ears, readying of radars, ...".

Close to a Thor Simulation

Entering rocket details into RockSim is not my favorite task. Fortunately for me, I almost finished creating the Thor in RockSim - that means that I'll be able to start running simulations soon.



As for construction: Greg M provided the drill press and drilled the holes in the aft centering ring last night for the motor retainer. Joe at HobbyTown helped me find another forward centering ring since one of the rings provided with the kit was consumed by the motor retainer. I expect to set all the centering rings today and hope to do some glassing with Warren on the airframe tomorrow.

Clary, Rocket Man

i borrowed Rocket Man from the local library with the hope of learning a bit about Robert Goddard. The book was pretty difficult to read, so I don't expect to ever read it again. The biggest problem was that the author bounced around in time so it was confusing about what had happened versus what was going on at the time. Another confusing bit was that the author used different names for the same people, but there were so many names in the book that it became a blur.

A particularly interesting bit in the book was that they dispute a lot of Goddard's claims. Goddard was certainly an intelligent visionary, but he was exclusive and when he found people that were likely smarter or more qualified he either convinced them to work on his team or he shunned them. Goddard received more publicity than any other scientist, but he never published in scientific journals.

Launch Log 2007.09.22

We had 7 launches on this awesome late-summer afternoon. We pulled out the Renegade which hasn't flown in a while, melted the Stingray, and broke the fin on the Purple Rhino - again. Spencer wanted to fly the Firestreak SST but it has a broken fin from little boys playing with rockets so we'll have to wait for a replacement part.

• Firehawk | 1/2 A3 | straight flight, higher than usual on 1/2 A3, drifted in recovery to land 100 yards from pad


• Renegade | C6 | Isaac did most of the prep, some weather cocking, drifted in recovery to land 120 yards from pad


• Army Man | B6 | impressive flight on a B6; no weather cocking but drifted a lot in recovery; landed about 200 yards from pad - bounced in a parking lot


• Stingray | 1/2 A3 | Spencer thought about prep'ing the rocket, weather cocked just enough to land close to pad on streamer recovery


• Purple Rhino | 4 x A10 | beautiful flight - love this rocket; no weather cocking; light wind so landed pretty close to pad


• Firehawk | 1/2 A3 | neighborhood kid joined us and did the prep; chute got stuff in ejection so motor ejected; no damage to rocket (other than lost motor retainer


• Stingray | 1/2 A3 | the ejection charge blew the nose-cone off the rocket and melted / deformed the top 60% of the fuselage; fuselage and nose-cone both recovered but rocket is damaged beyond repair because of the deforming of the fuselage

Before the final Stingray flight, we attempted to launch Mighty Mouse 2. I didn't have anything to use for flash-in-the-pan ignition, so we tried using solar igniters. After 3 attempts of getting rocket to pad, count-down, fail, check connection and for shorts, we gave up. We're thinking we need to build or buy a bigger launcher (one that uses a bigger battery anyway).


Spencer can't hold down the launch key, so Isaac holds the key and Spencer pushes the button.


Team work - and the rocket lifts off. Note that it is the person pushing the launch button that does the count-down.


Spencer finishes off his launch by doing his own retrieval. Well done, Spencer.

Bullet Ground-Testing

I've been reading a lot lately that you need to always ground-test to make sure that the charge can separate the loaded rocket. I had actually planned to fly the Bullet without ground-testing but I'm ready to fly the Bullet and the next available date isn't until November so ground-testing sounded kinda fun.

I prep'd the rocket (without an engine) and fed the wire for the Main ejection canister through the static port hole. Some people, so I'm told, do their ground-testing using a tube taped to the static port hole and they suck on the tube and then when they release, the AV bay represurrized and the computer fires the charges. I manually tested the computer separately a few days ago using it's built-
in test sequences and am just testing the separation in my ground-testing here.

Isaac thought that the test failed; he knew that the rocket wasn't going to launch but he thought that the chute was supposed to open. I used the canisters that I built a couple weeks ago and calculated that I needed about 2.5 g of FFFFg black powder for the ejection charge. A failure would have either been the whole upper section shredding from too big a charge or the nose code not popping out with force from too small a charge. Looks to me like the 2.5 g was just right.

Launch Log 2007.09.20

We met up with some friends at the park at 6p to play and launch some rockets. We had 5 launches and ended the evening by losing Mighty Mouse - yes, the original. Very sad.

By the time we all ate, it was after 6:30p - that means the sun was about to go down. The field had been in use by a bunch of soccer teams, so we weren't just waiting to finish eating. We performed a rapid setup and prep on the Firestreak SST and launched it for a nearly perfect flight on a 1/2 A3.

The second flight was the Firehawk on an A3, but we had intended to use a 1/2 A3. With dusking coming and a bit of a break, we needed to keep landings close to the pad and that meant lower flights. The Firehawk is a great flyer and it went out of sight on the A3. There was almost no weather cocking so a long walk crossed my mind; fortunately, the chute only opened about 70% so decent was quick but not destructive.

Third flight was the Firestreak SST again but this time with Sam pushing the button. Another great flight on a 1/2 A3 - Spencer loves his rocket and set it asside with the intention of us launching it again right after launching the Stingray. The Stingray was unexciting on a 1/2 A3 - just too small to see in the near dusk conditions.

The Firestreak SST wasn't ready for a flight yet, so I loaded up Mighty Mouse for a flight on a C6. What was I thinking? Bad choice - so long Mighty Mouse. After spending some time looking for Mighty Mouse, we cleaned up and went home.

Recovery Canisters

When I built the Bullet, I went with a common canister for storing the recovery charges: a PVC cap attached to the AV bay. Now that I've watched many people prep for flights, I've decided to switch to these Polyethylene tubing-based canisters. I'm hoping to do ground tests tomorrow for separation for main chute deployment so I made some canisters today.

In the pictures above, you can see the first couple steps I use. Since the glue takes a moment to set and the ROL article is light on details on technique, I decided to record my steps for future reference. I found it easiest to put a partial ring of glue around the bottom before involving the e-match. There would be just a little gap open to get the e-match in. After the partial ring set, I put the e-match in and put just a small drop of glue in to hold the match and then let that set. Finally, I'd put in the final bit of glue and fill it out at the bottom.

The reason for the multiple steps was that putting too much glue in at once made it too difficult to manage the e-match. For the separation tests tomorrow, I'll need to add 3g of black powder to the canister and cap it with masking tape but the hard part is done now.

Launch Log 2007.09.09

Mom and I briefly attended the Tripoli Colorado commercial launch on Saturday (2007.09.08) but we didn't launch anything. We got to see an impressive flight on a SkyRipper K motor - that was the first flight I'd seen on a hybrid (other than a couple Alpha Hybrid test flights that blew up the rockets). I attended the Tripoli Colorado research launch on Sunday (2007.09.09) for about 5 hours and got to see some static tests, more Alpha Hybrid tests (yes, again, they destroyed the rocket), and some big launches on home-built motors.

When we got home from our trip in the mountains, we all went over to the field by our house and launched a few rockets of our own. The first flight was Spencers new purple rocket: the Firestreak SST. The Firestreak SST was purchased to replace Spencer's previous favorite: the 'silver nose' Outlaw which finally broke a fin and is no longer flyable. The Firestreak SST used a A3-4T for its first flight and flew great but recovery was not ideal: it uses a streamer for recovery but the streamer didn't appear to slow the rocket much.

Our second flight was Isaac's new Firehawk. Isaac built and put the decals on the Firehawk himself but I assisted with the glueing. Isaac even tied the shock cord on. We flew the Firehawk on an A3-4T but recovery here was also a bit of a problem: chute didn't open right and got tangled up. We'll have to watch it closely on the next flight - perhaps we didn't pack the chute good enough on this first flight.

It was a bit windy: we had to tilt the launch rod quite a bit to keep the rockets coming down within walking distance.

We flew Mighty Mouse on a B4-2 and Army Man also on a B4-2. Might Mouse landed in a pine tree but was recovered and had no damage. Great straight flight and drifted a bit in recovery. Army Man landed behind the school; Shanelle was hoping it was on the school but the boys recovered it without trouble. It flew great on the B4 with very little weather cocking (which is why it landed so far away :) ).

Launch Log 2007.09.01

We launched at the NCR North Site which is in the Pawnee Grasslands. The launch ceiling was around 20,000 or 25,000 feet but none of our rockets were sent to even 1/10th that altitude today. We launched the Purple Rhino, Migthy Mouse, Army Man, and then Mighty Mouse 2.

Our first flight was a flash-in-the-pan ignition of the Rhino. It flew 4 A10-3T's which carried it high and straight even though only 3 of the 4 motors lit. The second flight was the Mighty Mouse on a C6-7. The 7 second delay was nice because that kept the Mighty Mouse pretty close to the pad even though it was a nice, high boost. The third flight was Army Man with the split set for the center of the rocket. Past flights of Army Man suggested that it was heavy or not aerodynamic so we used a C6-3; I'm pretty sure it hadn't hit apogee when the chute opened. We had to walk quite a ways to recover Army Man but we did find it. Finally, we launched Might Mouse 2 for the first time. We used 3 A3-4T's with a flash in the pan (but the pan in this case was a Cherry Coke can rather than our usual ceramic dish). I was worried that the flash wouldn't light all motors because the can wasn't as close as I usually like but all motors did light and it was high and straight.

We saw a couple dozen other flights. There were quite a few problems - more than I've seen at a public launch. One rocket got tangled on the rod, caught fire, and then knocked the launch pad over. Two rockets went unstable immediately and landed in the viewing area. Quite a few recovery failures; this one in particular was interesting:

This bowling pin and ball was pretty and flew nicely, but recovery failed completely. It went ballistic and fortunately landed quite a ways away from the launch line because was a big, fast impact.

Launch Log 2007.06.21

Isaac woke me up at 6:30a this morning to go launch some rockets. Unfortunately, I had a production deployment at 2a this morning, so I was slow to get out of bed. We finally hit the launch site around 7:45a and had some nice launches. It was a beautiful, warm morning; winds were calm.

Our first launch was a new Estes Bandit that the local hobby show, Mile Sky Hobbies, gave us. The owner had hosted a build 'n take booth at an air-show recently and we weren't able to attend so he gave us the model that he had built for demonstration. The rocket is an E2X kit and flies nice and straight. Our first flight was on an A8-3 just to verify that it would fly straight.

Second flight was the tiny, yellow Estes Sting Ray. Isaac did all the prep including the motor install and launch connection and then launched. We launched with a 1/2A3 and the tiny thing still went high and far.

Mighty Mouse took a turn on a B6-6 and had a great flight, as always. Next, Isaac prep'd the Estes Swift for it's first flight. Using a 1/2A3, the rocket went far out of site up and a little to the north. We heard the motor ejection, but couldn't see any trace of the rocket or smoke. Isaac is convinced that the Swift is orbitting earth at this very moment.

The String Ray flew next on a B6-4. The glide from powered flight to apogee was impressive. Mighty Mouse flew on a B6-6 and then we flew the String Ray one more time on a B6-6.

That's 7 flight... I think we had 8 launches... I'm forgetting something. I better start carrying paper or a computer to the launch to record! Launch prep was far better this time and I remembered all launch rods and parachutes today :)

Under Construction: Talon 2 and Rhino II

In the smallish rockets that I build, the motor mounts have been pretty fun lately. The two main rockets that I'm working on at the moment are the Talon 2 and the Rhino II. The Rhino II is my second Rhino: the first is a cluster with 4 13mm motors; the Rhino II will fly with 5 13mm motors.

The Talon 2 my first Talon kit - it just has a 2 in the name because Giant Leap makes a bunch of different sizes of the kit. This kit is a 'high power' kit similar to the Bullet, but far more complex to build. The motor mount is shown below just before I assembled it into the rocket. The black on the one end is the motor retainer that uses snap rings rather than a screw-on cap like the retainer on the Bullet. The wire loop on the motor mount is the shock-cord mount - again, different from the U-bolt used by the Bullet.

The motor mount in the Talon 2 is 29mm in diameter and about 18" long: that's pretty big for as small a rocket as it is. It uses G-10 fins which is a new material for me to work with. G-10 is necessary for bigger, faster rockets because it is a lot stronger and less flexible than plywood. One curiousity is that it uses a nylon shock-cord with kevlar sleeve rather than a simple kevlar shock-cord - I'm not sure why that is yet.

NCR June Launch

No - I didn't launch the Bullet this weekend. It was an awesome weekend of rocketry, though.



In the picture above, the two rockets were supposed to drag-race. I believe that the rules are the winner has the best 2 out of 3 of: first to altitude, highest altitude, and first to land. Art, with his BAMF, was the obvious winner in this launch because Dougs camera rocket didn't fire. The next day, they tried again and both rockets launched, but Doug's rocket was only thinking about getting to the ground first: it went up, turned over and went back down. I'm pretty sure it was super-sonic by the time it landed because it was really screaming and I was well over a mile away and could here it quite loudly. The nose cone was buried 2 feet in the hard-packed desert dirt. Art won again.

Later on the day, after dozens of other cool flights, this 14 foot long Saturn V launched. Most impressive:

Launch Log 2007.05.28

Isaac, Jeremiah, Luke, Emma, and Megan launched rockets today. We had 5 launches total with 2 of them being first flights. We need to start tracking how high the rockets go, but at this point we just see them as low, high, or really high.

The first launch was Might Mouse I with an A8-5. The Mighty Mouse is good to fly on a C, but I wanted to start with an A to introduce the girls to rockets. I think we should stick to A8-3 or just go with B or bigger in the future because the 5 second delay put the chute opening about 16 feet above ground (I was nervous).

Our second launch was the recently completed SpaceShip ONE. We used an A8-3, but that didn't work out so well. I think we'll try it again on a C, but I may not have gotten the wings straight because this launch was just kart-wheeling off the rod. We did a first flight of the UNNAMED: it flew decent and then melted the chutes on deployment. It recovered fine (fortunately, one of the chutes fully opened), but I'll have to figure out how to properly pack the chutes.

We finally launched the Alpha and the Outlaw. Both had great flights. The Alpha flew on a C6-7 and the Outlaw flew on a C6-5. Both were recovered in the same field, thanks to the calm weather. The paint on the Alpha is bubbled, so Luke and I suspect that the heat is causing it some problems. We may have to retire this one and get a new one for future flights.

Alberto Santos-Dumont

I've not read about Alberto until now. From the little information that I have read so far in Wikipedia I suspect at least a few of the early Tom Swift books were based around this man and his achievements. I'll have to find a book about him.

It was while I was looking for information about personal blimps that I saw Alberto's name. I was reading the FAQ about the Alberto airship from SkYacht and they pointed out that they named the ship after this pioneer of aviation.

Isn't it beautiful: