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This is a very basic demonstration of Chung-on-a-Stick’s ability to sense yaw and airspeed. The hair dryer doesn’t have a very wide airstream, but it still allows us to see how the Stick works. Chung-On-A-Stick is wind tunnel calibrated to tight tolerances. Yaw and airspeed, by the way, are in the rightmost column of the little display inset in the bottom right of the picture. Yaw is the number on top (in degrees) and airspeed is the number on the bottom (in km/h). This is Babe, Bunny’s best friend. Albino, trans-gender, autistic, deaf, and killer-cute!
 Yaw angle calibration in a wind tunnel Last night, our wind tunnel testing finally produced some milestone results: full yaw measurements from -20 degrees to +20 degrees. Shown in this photo is our setup for calibrating the probe. The probe mount has a dial indicator that measures yaw angle very accurately. One of the big questions was whether a 10-bit a-to-d converter could measure yaw accurately enough for our purposes. This wind tunnel test answered this question definitively: yes it can! Thanks to the probe design and port placement, we obtained a yaw sensitivity of 0.0235 v / degree. That translates to an a-to-d sensitivity of 0.25 degrees per bit. Our airspeed sensitivity will provide 1 m/s per bit for the high-range pressure transducer, and 0.1 m/s per bit for the low-range pressure transducer. This is very good news for Chung Method fans. Here is a summary of what we can expect the precision of the electronics to be:
If you’re interested in this project, please send an email to me, here. We met an anonymous traveller who was shadowing RAAM for more than 2500 miles of the journey. Inspired by watching RAAM on television, his unsupported bike ride across the country took him from Grand Junction , Co to Virginia Beach, VA on a mountain bike. Hats off to this adventurous soul. In his own words, “This is what I’ve got — I’m gonna do it!” This is the post-race interview for the Sir Steve Redgrave 8-Person team, the 8th place finishers at RAAM 2010. They battled a few hardships, and Sir Steve Redgrave himself was injured. We wish Steve a quick recovery. Congratulations to his valiant team on a courageous finish! Here is Canadian Armed Forces Lieutenant Colonel Tony O’Keeffe’s finisher’s interview at RAAM 2010. Tony finished in 4th place, cycling more than 3000miles solo. Tony is a dedicated athlete. On behalf of the entire crew, congratulations to Tony and to all the courageous RAAM 2010 competitors!  Tony O'Keeffe Each year a group of dedicated cyclists leave the beautiful west coast beaches of Oceanside, CA and wind their way eastward by bike. Like, really east — all the way to Annapolis, MD. The total distance is over 3000miles. In the coming days, I’ll be sharing what I can about this experience, through the hardships and the triumphs of a challenge that’s this huge. For RAAM 2010 I’m lucky enough to be part of Tony O’Keeffe’s Solo RAAM crew. Needless to say, I’m elated! The chance to work with the world’s fittest people is a rare opportunity. I’ll be helping Tony’s coach, Gilbert Ayoub. Our job is to keep Tony focussed on a steady, low-intensity effort the whole way through. A word is worth a thousand pictures. Probes.
The wind tunnel we’re using is a Flotek 1440 Educational Wind Tunnel. It comes stock with a number of flow experiments for students to learn basic aerodynamic principles. Aside from a force sensor, and various “stock” aerodynamic shapes like airfoils and NASCAR models, the tunnel also has a number of embedded pressure ports.
Bunny was borne of Opal and Flash of Kortar Kennels in Kemptville, ON, Canada on March 29th 2010. Her much older sister, Birdie, is looking forward to her company. |
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Here’s yet another photo update of the Chung-On-A-Stick project. Last night we had access to the tunnel for the 3rd time, and we set about to connect our own electronics to the tunnel’s various pressure ports.
This is Bunny, a little grey Siberian female. She will be joining our household in about 10 days. I thought she’d look terrific on this website. :-)