Today I’m gonna talk a little bit about the embedded computer. As I already told before, we are going to “science the shit out of this”, which means that we are going to gather as much info as we can from our rocket model. Yesterday I told about the measurement station and what kind of information it can provides, but what about taking some flight data? That’s where the embedded computer gets into the story.
The embedded computer will basically do three things: read info from the IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), store the data on a SD card and deploy the parachute. The inertial measurement unit is basically composed by a gyroscope, an accelerometer and a barometer. With these three sensors we can estimate the rocket’s orientation, acceleration and height. The embedded computer is also supposed to identify when the engines burned all up, meaning that the rocket is in free fall. After a few seconds of free fall, the parachute is supposed to be deployed using a servo motor, slowing the rocket to a non killing speed.
We are going to try to implement a fourth function for the embedded computer: transmitting the flight data via RF (Radio Frequency). This one is going to be tricky, so I’m leaving the problem to my pal Nilson. For now I’m just gonna have to figure out how to fit the embedded computer, the IMU and the SD card module inside a 4cm wide tube (don’t try to do this with your cock!) and still have space for a deployable parachute and a servomotor, but I’m gonna leave this task for another day. Time to sleep.
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