This is all the more impressive when you realise all the design, build, programming, filming, editing and even the music is done by one guy. I highly recommend subscribing to his YouTube channel to keep up with his current project: https://youtu.be/eh8ic1-5wFo
I also suggest you watch his live streams where he works on the electronics/avionics. It really helped me get back into electronics (albeit in a domain other than space). Very interesting, inspiring and he makes it seem so easy.
Aside: for some reason, the guy reminds of Kevin Macalister from Home Alone, when he's putting together his plans to catch the burglars!
> Also, do I even have to say it? Of course those boosters are gonna land! The propulsive landing test program is isolated from the Falcon Heavy program right now, but the two will merge as the success rate for both programs increases.
There's another guy who's been blowing up the /r/electronics subreddit for making his own pick'n'place machine.
It makes me wonder if their endgame is productizing their projects, or trying to "make it" as YouTubers, or they are just having fun and documenting the process of their fun-having.
From his about page: "I studied music production in college, and after seeing the ambition of SpaceX, and the excitement in the new space industry, I was hooked. I wanted to work in aerospace... "
At first, I wondered what SpaceX role would suit him best and why SpaceX hadn't hired him. Then it occurred to me that humanity might be better off with passionate polymaths such as him working outside as opposed to inside the establishment. After all, Elon Musk started his aerospace career outside the establishment. And SpaceX is now establishment?
Polymaths have been quite productive in crypto and other low-startup-cost environments. But, apparently, not so much in autonomous vehicles, etc. This could be a function of the learnings required for physical world projects, to wit: quaternions, telematics, aerodynamics, etc.
So, would we/he be better off inside or outside the Borg? Thoughts?
What he's done is super impressive and cool, but has he acquired the necessary base knowledge to work on an avionics, propulsion, etc team at SpaceX?
I'm not in any of those fields, but I'd have to imagine there's a large amount of background knowledge that someone with an aero or mechanical engineering degree has, that he hasn't picked up with model rockets.
But at the same time it shows that rocket tech is not as difficult as people make it out to be. (Rockets were difficult when we didn't have computers.) Also, some universities have student teams which regularly launch similar rockets.
I'm personally hoping for someone to build an IC fab or even a wafer stepper in their garage.
> But at the same time it shows that rocket tech is not as difficult as people make it out to be.
It really doesn't. The scale model probably weighs a few pounds where as the real Falcon Heavy weighs 3 million pounds [1]. Think about what a different scale that is!
Also note that the scale model's (really cool) test flight failed -- with the real Falcon Heavy that lesson would cost something like $150M.
I think this is kind of similar to: it's really easy to query/serve a SQL database even if it's a few tens of terabytes in size. But make it a few tens of exabytes, and things are dramatically more difficult due to the scale. The architecture that works at the terabyte size (single machine) falls over completely.
This thing doesn’t fly as high as a bottle rocket. What makes building rockets hard not the avionics but economics and the good old rocket equation. A cool model is really solving a very different but still fun problem.
Rare gem - the bulk is made of open source stuff no one asked for, rants against employers, and weird calls to revolution. Worth staying for the rare ones tho.
I remember my first play around with the small rocket kits. 1 small motor and you press “Fire” annnnd it’s gone. You can’t see it anymore and it’s lost lol.
That just means you put too big a motor in it! Each motor letter designation is double the total impulse of the previous one - it's a log scale. If you stick a C motor into a small, well-built, lightweight rocket, it's going to go over a thousand feet. Unless you painted it a very bright color, you're probably going to struggle... so stick to the A motors for your maiden flight!
He’s been pretty careful to not do anything illegal (he’s talked about this in a few live-streams), for example not open-sourcing any of his control software and using just local IMU data for in-flight control.
Shouldn't it be 1 / 110,592 scale net worth though? Saying 1/48th model is a bit misleading as it's 1/48th in 3 dimensions, whereas worth is one dimensional.
If it's possible to fit that electronic hardware on something the size of a credit card how does it compare to what is used for that purpose in a real orbital rocket other than redundacy features?
If you want to get more details, the search terms you want are EFIS (electronic flight instrument system) and AHRS (attitude and heading reference system, pronounced "ay-harz").
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Aside: for some reason, the guy reminds of Kevin Macalister from Home Alone, when he's putting together his plans to catch the burglars!
> Also, do I even have to say it? Of course those boosters are gonna land! The propulsive landing test program is isolated from the Falcon Heavy program right now, but the two will merge as the success rate for both programs increases.
It makes me wonder if their endgame is productizing their projects, or trying to "make it" as YouTubers, or they are just having fun and documenting the process of their fun-having.
Peter Stripol is my favorite of these types of channels. Guy built (and flew!) an airplane out of styrofoam.
At first, I wondered what SpaceX role would suit him best and why SpaceX hadn't hired him. Then it occurred to me that humanity might be better off with passionate polymaths such as him working outside as opposed to inside the establishment. After all, Elon Musk started his aerospace career outside the establishment. And SpaceX is now establishment?
Polymaths have been quite productive in crypto and other low-startup-cost environments. But, apparently, not so much in autonomous vehicles, etc. This could be a function of the learnings required for physical world projects, to wit: quaternions, telematics, aerodynamics, etc.
So, would we/he be better off inside or outside the Borg? Thoughts?
I'm not in any of those fields, but I'd have to imagine there's a large amount of background knowledge that someone with an aero or mechanical engineering degree has, that he hasn't picked up with model rockets.
But at the same time it shows that rocket tech is not as difficult as people make it out to be. (Rockets were difficult when we didn't have computers.) Also, some universities have student teams which regularly launch similar rockets.
I'm personally hoping for someone to build an IC fab or even a wafer stepper in their garage.
It really doesn't. The scale model probably weighs a few pounds where as the real Falcon Heavy weighs 3 million pounds [1]. Think about what a different scale that is!
Also note that the scale model's (really cool) test flight failed -- with the real Falcon Heavy that lesson would cost something like $150M.
I think this is kind of similar to: it's really easy to query/serve a SQL database even if it's a few tens of terabytes in size. But make it a few tens of exabytes, and things are dramatically more difficult due to the scale. The architecture that works at the terabyte size (single machine) falls over completely.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy
(Also: launch from the upwind edge of the field!)
Cool tech though. Hope he doesn't get into trouble
If he is not running his own orbital rocket company in 10 years I will be amazed.
https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/iLevilSport.p...
And another one designed to be panel-mounted:
https://www.dynonavionics.com/pocket-panel.php
If you want to get more details, the search terms you want are EFIS (electronic flight instrument system) and AHRS (attitude and heading reference system, pronounced "ay-harz").