UAV OutBack Challenge update & Bonus Space Pic

As expected, CanberraUAV - who almost completed the UAV Outback Challenge last time - won the challenge, taking home $50k in prize money. 2 years ago they failed only because their bottle deployed unintentionally during flight. This year, they got the bottle within 3 metres (2.6) of Outback Joe (who they're trying to find and rescue with a bottle, in this S&R competition scenario).

Here's a great write-up debrief by them:   (obligatory iframe)

Make sure to check out the really cool software they put up on github! And also that documentation repo. One of the coolest things about CanberraUAV is how open they are (as in open-source), and how much they share with other teams!

Unfortunately, while the Monash UAS team's (which I joined recently) plane flew very well, they couldn't find Joe. I'll be going to the internal debrief on Tuesday and hopefully learn more, as well as try and locate Joe using (augmentations of) our software from our data gathered.


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Space pretties incoming! Check this photo! (link to NASA APOD page)
Much wow. So mind-bend - how?!. Also check out a lot of the guy's other really cool photos. I obviously really like the aurora photos in his gallery.

SpaceX news updates (external video of F9R landing!)

So a rocket basically exploded, hasn't happened to my knowledge since Falcon 1 series. It was only a test vehicle (grasshopper with 3 merlin engines) and it was according to system definitions - auto-terminated once parameters weren't right.

Three engine F9R Dev1 vehicle auto-terminated during test flight. No injuries or near injuries. Rockets are tricky …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2014

.@SpaceX statement on 8/22 F9R test in McGregor, Texas: pic.twitter.com/p7JL5VoQlP
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 23, 2014

Here's the video of it exploding:

Failure is good, helps them make their rockets better and more reliable! =) Having played KSP I'm surprised this hasn't happened in a while (in a test vehicle for SpaceX) haha.

The "Failsafe" reminds me of that in the requirements in the autopilot for the UAV Outback Challenge. Recently joined the Monash team, one of the many advantages of a university with a larger cohort - enough people to make teams for this kind of stuff! =)

Video of Falcon 9 first stage landing on water. Extra cool!


Previously I reported on an on-board video of the landing, check it out at this link!

Making fuel from seawater, FOSS, USPTO and copyright

The US navy is researching methods to make fuel from seawater and have a working prototype!
This has been a many-year effort.
Basically CO2 is extracted from sea-water by acidifying seawater with HCl and using electrolysis to extract CO2 and H2.
Then, using a Fischer-Tropsch catalyst and high temperatures (190C) long-chain hydrocarbons can be formed. 

Both main reactions/processes are obviously endothermic and require energy, so you wouldn't expect a ship to make their own hydrocarbon fuel and run on it, so ships can't be self-sufficient and not need to dock for fuel. However, it also means a whole new supply chain can be opened up which don't require traditional shipping/supply of oil from oil rigs and mines around the world.

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Yay for Linux on military drones courtesy of Raytheon! It might be a smart move to do stuff like open API for cost redundancy reduction and inefficiency reduction. Security through obscurity is not real security, so it's arguable no less safe than a proprietary *nix system like Oracle.
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/05/us-military-drones-are-going-to-start-running-on-linux/

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Speaking of open APIs, wtf is this:
Oracle granted API copyright, wins vs Google.
I mean, we've been down this road before with software patents and all their predicted detriments, and now you can copyright an API. Not sure how closely your API can resemble another's but this is treading deep into the patenting an idea. Maybe in 10 years time I can patent the idea of mining asteroids, even though Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries would have been going at it for 10+years. Then I'll just receive royalties from any enterprising new-space company or project and live in luxury while drowning my guilt and shame and morality in loads of ice-cream. Also, everyone will have to hire more lawyers and the ratio of lawyers to engineers, scientists and other staff would be 50-50 in any technology company. And all the lawyers will be busy doing nothing but harming everyone.

And speaking of horrible copyright and patent rulings, if you know me you should know how much I look down on the USPTO - I have no hope in it. I mean, they just let Amazon patent taking photos against a white background! Watch out, passport photo takers! - That Star Trek double face-palm image is quite apt, so is "credibility reaching zero".

Game piracy (+drone that sticks on walls)

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

I lol'd like the dev, but it is pretty sad. Most games have 'DRM' in the form of having to connect to a server on the internet to be able to play multiplayer. But for single player games, this would be stupid, and everyone loves DRM free, for reasons stated. They have a demo, so no excuse dl'ing the torrent.

In other news:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-05/gecko-like-drone-can-land-on-walls-and-ceilings