ARCADE Logo ver.1.1

Our logo was updated to version 1.1, in order to truly represent a Tetris screenshot and… well, to make Koen happy.

The following figure better shows how it changed.

Gyroscope design & first tests

From navigation systems to cell phones, nowadays gyroscopes are widely used in consumer electronics. Do you want to know in which direction you’re travelling? All you need is a small piece of semiconductor that makes up a Micro Electro Mechanical System Gyroscope (MEMS gyro for insiders) with vibrating structure. Actually these devices were designed for aerospace navigation. This is why we are going have one of them as part of our navigation system. With no need for external reference points or radio signals, that will be the most independent and reliable attitude measurement device we could use.

We selected an industrial grade on-chip MEMS gyro from Sensonor Technologies AS that pits out its data through an SPI interface. A CanOPEN-enabled PIC microcontroller acquires everyhing and the play is done! We are ready to get connected to the onboard experiment bus.

Up to now, from the electrical and communication point of view, everything seems to work fine. We will now struggle with the problems of calibrating the gyro and squeeze out as high as possible precision with as low as possible drift. This powerful, quickly built-up calibration facility will help us!

TRIVIA: How precise can ever be a gyro, measuring direction of a vehicle, is the earth itself spins about 2,5° each 10 minutes?

Navigation Sensors Tests

A simple apparatus to perform tests at subsystem level will be ready by next week… here it is how it will look like

Fren

The “Lil Bro” of the ARCADE experiment

After a couple of week of intense contacts, we proudly announce the participation of the ARCADE Team to the 10th edition of “Sperimentando”, a University of Padova scientific exhibition that counted more than 12000 visitors last year!

The exhibition will be held from April 11th to May 15th at the “Ex macello”, located in Cornaro Street 1, Padova, Italy. There we will have a stand with promotional material and a mystery “Lil Bro” version of the ARCADE experiment, to interact with the visitors and to make them… PLAY!

Here we unveil for the very first time how its structure will look like:

If you are in the nearby… you can’t really miss it!