Know How... 131 (Transcript)
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Today, de-Burke-afying your DJI drone, taking look at an Instamorph project
that’s not horrible, and should your car be automated? Coming up on Know How!
Father
Robert Ballecer: Welcome to Know How it is the Twit show where we
build, bend, break and upgrade. I’m Father Robert Ballecer.
Bryan
Burnett: And I’m
Bryan Burnett.
Fr.
Robert: And for the
next 15 minutes or so we are going to show you some of the projects that we’ve
been working on, geeking out to, so that you can take
them home and be it weekend geek warrior.
Bryan: But before we get to that we have a
cool story about solar power.
Fr.
Robert: Specifically if you want to see the future of solar power
take a trip over to paradise. Now, Bryan, you know that I love solar
right? We’ve done solar projects on Know How, it is
the whole idea of being able to convert sunlight directly into usable
electricity. There is something very cool about that. Very
sci-fi.
Bryan: Very sci-fi and very clean. Using the energy around us without destroying our environment.
Fr.
Robert: You want to
say it in a nice way but we are not destroying things. Now, construction of
solar panels can be kind of toxic but we are working on that. When I was a kid
the solar panels that I had to work with were normally tidy because the yields
back then were horrible. You were lucky if you got something with 5%
efficiency. Solar panels just worked great now. We have increase the yields and we have also increase the efficiency. The theoretical maximum
efficiency of a solar panel is about 33% or 34%.
Bryan: So for the amount of sunlight that
is hitting the energy that is able to absorb is 34% of it?
Fr.
Robert: Yes. Or
will convert directly into electricity. And that is not bad. But, we are
finding that when we start to build these huge arrays of solar panels, which
are great, there is one problem. There are some issues. The biggest issue, as
it has been with most forms of alternate energy, is we need to generate power
when there is a demand for power.
Bryan: Right. And that means whether it is
cloudy or dark.
Fr.
Robert: Or if the
wind is not blowing if you have a wind farm.
Bryan: And you have to store that energy
too.
Fr.
Robert: The old
additional means of generating power that we have on our grid, like coal or
nuclear. That is not a problem because you just increase the reaction or you
increase the amount of fuel that goes to the boiler and you can up the amount
of power that you generate. But if you got a resource limited alternative
energy source, like solar or wind, you cannot really do that. You do need to
have something to store. Now, here is a big thing. If you don’t have a really
good system to store power you can run into horrible issues. Specifically you
kill the batteries on which your grid runs.
Bryan: Because they de-charge and then
they increase and then they de-charge again and it is all according to how much
sunlight you get.
Fr.
Robert: We know
this. We have been playing with big batteries. This is a brand-new with that
I’d offer my quad copter, this is a five amp 14.8 full
battery. It will keep my quad copter in the air for like 30 minutes. But,
although this is great, we talked about this when we were talking about quad
copter technologies. Batteries have a certain amount of discharges and they
have a certain amount of power that they can push out or bring in at any given
time. Remember how these work. You’ve got a dielectric and you’ve got some way
of pushing power through an insulator into the chemistry. But every time you do
that you damage that insulation. You do it enough times, and it just doesn’t
work anymore.
Bryan: So once again, the limiting factor
is battery technology.
Fr.
Robert: Battery
technology. And if you don’t have good batteries and battery tech, this is what
happens. Our grid in the United States, but you can substitute your own power
grid where you live, our grid runs at 110 Volts and 60
Hz. So 60 cps. If you have a solar farm and a cloud
passes over the solar farm you could go from 100% production to 20% production
and a matter of seconds. That is a huge dip. If that solar farm is the primary
source of a grid at that particular time, what will happen is that you will
actually start to decrease the Hz. You will drop down to like 40 Hz. You push
40 Hz of power through a grid and you will blowout appliances. Destroy things
that are connected to the grid.
Bryan: Is that when you get the brownouts
and things like that?
Fr.
Robert: Right. A
Brown out is actually better than having that happen because you will destroy
large appliances. It is super bad. We use batteries to fill in that gap. Well,
we need a way to do that on a larger scale than we are doing right now. And it
is actually happening. We have some pictures here of the installation in Hawaii
right now. Right now in Hawaii they have a grid that is providing between 50% to 80% of power through solar panel. In order to
do that they have to have a fantastic battery plant that could fill in those
gaps when they had the problem. Here is the problem that they ran into. They
built this thing thinking that this was going to last somewhere along the lines
of five years. So this battery plant was supposed to fill in the gap for five
years. They are finding that after just over a year, the batteries are nearly
useless. They have been used so many times and cycled so many times they are
just gone. That is bad news. And it also means you can’t really have a grid if
you don’t have a way to balance out the power. They have been looking at other
alternatives. May be having turbine generators that can span up really fast so
that you can tide them over but even then, you still need an interim source of
power and that is going to be batteries.
Bryan: Oh geez. This seems like a
difficult compromise to have to make. But if they need someone to volunteer to
check it out I am more than willing.
Fr.
Robert: Luckily, we
actually solved this problem on Know How a while back.
Bryan: Did we?
Fr.
Robert: Not really.
We talked about the solution. Remember when we were talking about those
batteries that had titanium dioxide in them?
Bryan: Rust.
Fr.
Robert: Rust.
Titanium rust inside the chemistry and they were able to rapidly charge a
battery on the bus. So the battery that was being used on the bus was charged
and 45 seconds. Get all the charge it would need for an hour of operation.
Bryan: We talked about how they could
implement it in bus stops are intersections and then charge up the bus as it
went along.
Fr.
Robert: Exactly.
And the cool thing about that is they figured out by adding titanium rust to
the chemistry for lithium ion polymer battery you could get a very stable
chemistry that can take a lot of current at any given time and push out a lot
of any current at any given time. And instead of lasting 100 or 200 cycles, it
would last 10,000 or 100,000 cycles. That is exactly the kind of battery
technology that we need to smooth out those dips.
Bryan: So are they working on that?
Fr.
Robert: It is the
way things are going. They are looking at a couple of different operations. Because right now that is still experimental. They have to
get the yields up. The interesting thing is when you look at alternate energy, that is the main problem right now. It is not the
power that you can get from the alternate energy system, it is storage. And now
it looks like we actually have some tech that looks promising and enough to be
that storage.
Bryan: I always feel like we are living
in, not the Stone Age about the early days of battery technology still. And we
are still trying to get that next leap in storage and being able to hold onto
the capacity. Because once we are able to nail down that problem, think if we could
charge up our quads in just a few seconds and not have to worry about it. It
always comes back to the quad copter doesn’t it?
Fr.
Robert: It is a big
battery for Hawaii so do you check the voltage by licking the contact? Did you
ever do that when you were a kid? Check a 9 V battery?
Bryan: Yeah, I did. Although I do find it
strange that it is on Hawaii but when I first read this story I imagined it was
going to be volcano, thermal, energy. That would be a constant source of
energy.
Fr.
Robert: It would be
constant and actually when you think about it, using the model flows and the
heat coming off the big Island of Hawaii would be perfect because it is not a
violent volcano. It is a very predictable volcano but, the problem there is
that it is actually a sacred space.
Bryan: Oh. Well. Okay. Well let’s figure
out the battery thing first.
Fr.
Robert: I lived in
Hawaii for a couple years and the locals would go crazy anytime they saw videos
of people throwing soda cans in a lot of flow.
Bryan: Be respectful. And don't fly drones
over it either then?
Fr.
Robert: No. Can't do that. All right, now we are going to be getting
into a little bit of a fix. It is not a quad copter project but a lot of people
have contacted us about their Phantom’s. Phantom 1 and
Phantom II. About a problem that unfortunately many have embarrassing
accidents.
Bryan: Especially if it is the first one
you ever tried and used. There is probably something you are going to run it
into that you are going to have to fix.
Fr.
Robert: And we are
going to show you how to not just fix it, but to make it better. But before we
do that let’s go ahead and take a moment to thank the first sponsor of Know
How. And you know it’s got to be iFixit. Now, Bryan,
both of us use iFixit almost exclusively for our quad
copters.
Bryan: At my desk, at the ready, I have my iFixit toolkit and the magnetic pad. Because there is never a time that I’m not… what? Because
every day I am taking something apart and putting it back together.
Fr.
Robert: We have to
hide this one. This is the one we use for the ad reviews and we have to hid it because people keep taking them. When you think about
repairing things, iFixit has to be the choice. We’ve
got some video here that shows you some of the things that I have been doing
with my iFixit kit. It is my regular go to pack when
I have to reassemble a quad copter or fix something that I have broken. iFixit isn’t just about tools
though. It is the place for all the parts and the know-how that you need to fix
all your stuff. Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android Devices from broken screens to
dead batteries and everything in between iFixit is
the place to go. DIY repair saves you money, it is convenient, and more than
that it teaches you how things work. Learning in the process is probably the
best thing for all the world. And best of all, iFixit makes it easy with the highest quality parts and
step-by-step repair guide to walk you through the repair. IFixit has dozens of displays and battery kits for all sorts of devices. Right now,
Bryan has his hands on two of the boxes that we have been playing with here at
the studio. This is a screen for an iPhone 5S that will show you these kids are
self-contained, do-it-yourself packages. If you’ve got a broken screen you can
actually ask not just for the tools but for the parts themselves. And, this
step-by-step repair guide that makes it easy to get your device back up and
running. Every iFixit kit comes with all the tools
you need to fix it the right way. Pennelope drivers
for proprietary screws, spongers and plastic opening tools for precision,
suction cups for pulling displays off of frames, replacement adhesive for parts
that need it. Like the iPhone 5S. It also has pro grade replacement parts, parts
that are tested to give you peace of mind that the part you receive works. And
they are guaranteed. And like a lot of other things you might buy off of eBay,
if the part fails, iFixit will make things right. IFixit offers the best tools and repair parts and they also
have the best step-by-step guides to show you exactly how to fix that device
that you were working on. In fact they have a comprehensive repair guide for
every single iPhone, iPad and Mac computer. Plus a growing list of android
devices. And these repair guides are free. That is right, no purchase
necessary. IFixit makes DIY repair fun, easy and
affordable. So here is what we want you to do. Support Know How by going over
to iFixit.com/twit for all of the tools, parts and kits you will need to fix all your broken
stuff. Enter the code know how it check out and you will save $10 off any
purchase of $50 or more. That is iFixit.com/twit. And use the code Know How. We
thank iFixit for their support of Know How.
Bryan: For this next de-Burke-afying project we have, it would probably be handy to have
an iFixit kit.
Fr.
Robert: One of the
most asked questions that we got on our quad copter forums is about the
Phantom. We have opinions about the Phantom.
Bryan: Phantom is by far the most popular
drone that I have seen. And it is definitely one of the ones that has gone mainstream with the video footage and things like
that.
Fr.
Robert: The Phantom
and the Phantom II are really the ones that made drones, or quad copters,
popular. That is because they were so easy to buy and so easy to fly. But it
also means that they were incredibly easy to break.
Bryan: As is natural to do when you start
playing with quad copters.
Fr.
Robert: Do you want
to explain what happened to this particular craft?
Bryan: I feel like I have explained that
before. I don’t need to explain it again. It certainly wasn’t me just as soon
being I could fly it straight out of the box. They are simple to fly, but the
manual that came with this…
Fr.
Robert: They are
easy to get in the air but it takes a while to learn how to actually fly it.
Bryan: The problem I had was that I had to
plug it into a laptop and then set the props for the proper rotation. So the
advice I got from you one time was that it wasn’t flying correctly because I
wasn’t giving it enough throttle. So I said okay, I’ll try it. And I sent it up
about 300 feet in the air and it was still wobbling. Then it was flying over
some trees and I panicked and it flipped in the air and I threw the throttle
back on and it went straight in the ground, broke all the props and a bunch of
other stuff on it. Then I gave it to Burke to try to fix it and it was
unrecoverable at that point.
Fr.
Robert: But what
made it unrecoverable was a mistake that a lot of Phantom owners have made. And
that is if you remove the prop guards which a lot of us do because they are big
and bulky, and once you kind of learn how to fly you don't really need them
anymore. The screw length is different. Because it goes through the prop guard
into the motor, then what happens is they take the screw out and put it back in
without the prop guard and it goes all the way into the motor and actually
damages the coil. Once you damage the coil in the motor it is dead. Don’t even
try to rewind it.
Bryan: Dang. That is exactly what
happened.
Fr.
Robert: So let’s
take a look at some of the things that we need for this fix. We need motors
because that is what we burned out.
Bryan:We’ve been playing with a lot of those.
Fr.
Robert: Here are a couple that we had been playing with on the show. This
one is actually an Emax 2213, you buy these on Amazon a lot. You can get a four pack for $60. So this is a
perfect motor replacement. It even fits the same props, it is the same size, it is almost a perfect match for the motors that came with
your DJI.
Bryan: In the look cool too.
Fr.
Robert: And they
look cool. This is something else. This is a house motor that we got from ready
to fly quads. This one will run you about $10. Which is not
bad. So you go down from $15-$10. And now, the repair is not all that
expensive. It is not a great motor but it is a good enough motor. It is still
better than the ones that came with the DJI in the first place.
Bryan: That is what you’ve explained to me
after you’ve taken the DJI apart is that it is not nearly as sophisticated as
some of the other drones that we have been building for less.
Fr.
Robert: And
actually when we open this up you will see that we made a couple of
alterations. This is not actually how a DJI drone looks when you first open it
up. These speed controllers are original and everything else has been changed. But for good cause. Because we basically
destroyed everything in crashing and taking it apart and destroying the motors.
Bryan: We are trying to bring it back to
life.
Fr.
Robert: We are
trying to bring it back to life and over the next couple of weeks we are going
to show you a few more of the alterations that we made to our Phantom so that
maybe you can do it to yours. But, without further ado, Alex push that magic button.
Fr.
Robert: The DJI
Phantom and Phantom II are some of the most popular mass-produced quad coppers
ever sold. But a common mistake that Phantom owners make is reassembling their
quads after taking off the prop guards forgetting that the motor screws holding
the prop guards are 2 mm longer than the standard motor screws. This causes
these screws to touch the coils in the motors destroying them. Luckily
replacement motors can be had for $10-$20 each and it is relatively easy not
just to fix your phantom, but to modify it for ease of upgrading in the future.
The fix starts by unplugging the battery and opening the phantom shell by
removing all the screws on the other side of the craft. Be sure to mark where
they came from so that you can replace them after the fix. Once the shell is
open you will notice that each of them motors is connected to a circuit board on
each arm by three wires. Those circuit boards, the electronic speed controllers
are connected to a flight controller at the center of the Phantom. Don’t mess
with any of the wiring. We are just here to replace the burned out motors.
Speaking of the motors, we are replacing all four so it doesn’t matter where we
start. But first, take a hard look at each motor and ESC to make sure that
there isn’t any scorching on any ESC components. Hopefully you just killed the
motors but if you see popped components or burned chips on the ESC you have to
replace them as well. Choose one motor to begin with and remove the four screws
holding the motor to the arm. With the motor free, use a pair of snips and cut
the silicon wires at the base of the motor. We could just solder the
replacements onto the ESC’s, but soldering onto the ESC can be difficult for
soldering novices. And we are actually upgrading the wiring so that future
motor swaps will be easy. With the dead motor removed, use a pair of insulation
strippers to cut away for a millimeters or so of
insulation from the end of each wire. Tin your wires by heating them with your
soldering iron until they flow solder into the strands. Now we need to add
female bullet connectors to the end of each wire. These are standard connectors
that will allow you to quickly replace motors in the future if you need to
repair or upgrade your craft. I used a pair of helping hands to keep the
bullets before adding some solder and then inserting the pre-tinned wire into
the solder filled bullet. Make sure not to move the wire until the solder has
hardened to avoid cold solder joints. With the bullet connectors soldered we
need to add heat shrink tubing to insulate each wire in order to prevent
shorts. Add short links of tubing to each wire making sure to reach the end of
each connector and then use a heat source to shrink the tubing. It is okay if
the tubing extends past the connector, you can always trim the excess and I
prefer to leave a little overlap to help make sure the leads are completely
isolated from one another. Shorted lead means burned out ESC’s. Complete the
same process for all four motors then mount your new motors on each arm making
sure to use the right screws, connecting the motors three leads to any of the
three ESC leads. Power up your quad and throttle it up to check the rotation of
your motors. The front left motor should spin clockwise, the front right motor
counterclockwise, the right rear motor should spin clockwise and the right
left, counterclockwise. A piece of tape on the shaft can help you see which way
the motor is turning. I use the spare KK flight controller available for about
$20 in place of the default flight controller to make the process a little
easier. But if you have the NAS utility installed on your computer you can
trigger each motor individually to check rotation. If any of your motorists are
spinning in the wrong direction simply swap any two of the three leads going
between the motor and ESC. It doesn’t matter which. Once you verify that your
motors are all spinning in the right direction, assuming that you didn’t
replace any of the ESC is, you can now close it up, put on the props, power it
on and give it a test flight.
Fr.
Robert: We’ve got
somebody in the chat room saying is this something that we should all be
worried about? Not everyone out there owns a DJI drone but, yes. This is
probably the most common way to damage your motor after crashing it. People put
the wrong size screws and if you don’t look to make sure that they don’t go too
far, if they are even touching those coils it will damage the motor. And I personally
like having bullets, there are a lot of people who say they just solder it and
it is more reliable. But I like the ability to be able to swap out components. Someone
else in the chat room and asked if I am worried about turning this too much
into a do-it-yourself drone. Absolutely not. We like
being able to build things, we like being able to swap components in and out.
In fact right now you will notice that we got rid of the original flight
controller. We put a performance flight controller in here because the original
DJI quad copter is designed to carry a camera. It is designed to be very
stable. We want to play around so we swap the flight controller with one that
can be made more aggressive.
Bryan: The more I look at this, the more I
think it is pretty much just a DJI shell that has a new quad copter inside of
it.
Fr.
Robert: We are
using the original battery so that makes it okay. So there you go. By the way,
I should probably mention we are coming to the end of February which means we
are starting to get back into actual quad builds. We will be showing a lot more
of the mods that we have made to the DJI Phantom and will also be showing you some
of the mods that we have made to our 250 class quad copters as well as teaching
you how to do brand-new builds, like this 450 class dead cat.
Bryan: Yeah. That things got some power.
Fr.
Robert: Yes it
does. Speaking of power, you know one of the things that I have admired the
most? Bending. Air bending. I'd actually been a fan of the Avatar series. Watch
the cartoons. They are much better. Then Korra, the
sequel to it was a totally fantastic series. If you haven’t watched it buy it. Watch the first and the last season those are the
best.
Bryan: Why are we talking about cartoons
on Know How?
Fr.
Robert: Because I
wanted to give our audience an example of using Instamorph. Unlike us. We really, really suck at it.
Bryan: I can do my little guys pretty
well.
Fr.
Robert: I can do
trays… but somebody who actually has artistic talent who can sculpt and can
really bring out what Instamorph can do, which is why
we brought in our very own Aman. Aman thank you very much for coming
in to the show. Spoiler, Aman actually dies. He
is a water bender who can actually blood bend and he is learned the secrets of
taking away other benders bending.
Bryan: So he is like the Darth Vader of
bending?
Fr.
Robert: Absolutely.
We do have a link in there that can show you some actual pics from the series
and show you what Aman looks like. I think it is
important to see that relentless skill that Patrick had in playing with the Instamorph to get this. That is what it looks like from the
series. it is amazing the kind of detail that goes
into making a mask like this. Patrick, hold that thing up. We want to see what
you did here.
Patrick Delahanty: Well, I heated up the Instamorph. I got one of the
smaller tabs and I heated up half of it. I made it into a flat sheet. And then
I went to JoAnn fabric and got this mask, it is just cardboard. But I had all
the Instamorph flattened out on a flat surface and
let it dry. But it was still pliable. So while it was pliable I put it inside
this cardboard mask and just spread it out and bought the shape of it. You can
see the cardboard didn’t come out to the top so I had to do my own little bit
for up here. But that gave me a nice smooth surface for the mask. And then I
added on extra bits like the pointy nose and eyebrows. I covered it in spray
paint, then I painted on all the details and I’ve got my Aman mask.
Bryan: That is awesome.
Fr.
Robert: We really
wanted to get someone who could do CausePlay and both
you and your fiancé, soon to be wife, are absolutely fabulous at it. You’ve got
an eye for detail and you’ve got that talent that you can actually turn an idea
into something that is sculpted. Which is why Instamorph is supposed to do. Which
I could never do.
Bryan: I’m really happy that Patrick did
this project because you wouldn’t recommend just heating up the Instamorph and then trying to form it.
Fr.
Robert: That brings
up a good question. How did you get it to conform to your face?
Patrick: That is why I use this. This was
big enough for my face. They sell smaller ones but it wouldn’t fit on my face.
So I got this and just molded it inside that and then all the details I cut out
with the Dremel. But I had to be careful because when
I used the Dremel it heated it back up again and so I
ended up getting a lot of little bubble sticking out, just little bits. But I
could just pull those off and adjust it.
Fr.
Robert: Patrick
I’ve got to ask you this. I actually had that problem when I was sculpting some
of my parts. I would make the template and then I would have to cut out the
mounting holes. And so I would use the Dremel tool in
order to get that out. And I did notice that it would soften. Then I started to
think, well I can make a part and then soften it and that's that I could poke
through with a copper tube. Did you try to do selective re-softening or
reheating of the mask in order to get the textures?
Patrick: I did. There were some areas that
weren’t quite perfect when I did this, like for example with the eyes. I
actually softened it back up and win in an pushed out
the eyes so that I could better tell where the edges were and where I needed to
cut. And then up here at the top because this mask only goes up to the lower
forehead, I had to do this custom on the top here. So I had to go and soften
this up and then I had to soften the original part and combine them. So I was
dipping it in the hot water to just re-soften part of it and then I would bring
it out and kind of adjusted and smooth it.
Bryan: It looks cool. Did you find it
difficult to paint at all?
Patrick: I used a coat of spray paint and
that was good. It actually helped cover up some of the little holes. But then
because I picked glossy paint the detail paint I had trouble getting it to
stick here. It just wanted to come off. So I had to do multiple coats.
Fr.
Robert: How many
times did you have to redo this? Because one of the things I liked about Instamorph is that if you mess up you just put it back in
the water and start over. Did you get it on your first try?
Patrick: No, no. On the first try I just
tried sculpting it myself. That did not come out very well. It looked like my
face was melting. And that is when I went and got this. And so I just threw
that back in the water, heated it up and put it in here.
Bryan: You won an award for it didn’t you?
Patrick: Yeah, there was a group of us and
we won best presentation runner-up.
Bryan: Nice. Do you have any future plans
to use Instamorph?
Patrick: Absolutely. I'm not sure what yet
but definitely will come back to it. For Grut I think
I am going to use actual foam.
Fr.
Robert: This is a
good question. For people who do want to start using Instamorph for CausePlay, where is the cut off? Where do you
think Instamorph falls as a useful material versus I
will use foam or I will use clay?
Patrick: I think if you are doing something and
you have a mold for it, it makes it a lot easier. This is just flimsy and it
wouldn’t hold up but I could use this to make a nice solid mold. This isn’t
going to change shape unless I leave it in the car on a hot day. If you have
small things you could probably… like your little army figures you could get
little good things out of it. But if you are trying to do something with a lot
of detail it is harder.
Fr.
Robert: How about
this Patrick, can we make you a deal? If we keep you supplied with Instamorph would you start to show us the ways of the CausePlay masters?
Patrick: I would love to play with some of
this.
Fr.
Robert: Patrick Delahanty, that is Aman who works
for twit could you please tell our audience where they can find you when you
are not being evil?
Patrick: If you are looking for conventions
you can find them at my site fanconcept.com.
Fr.
Robert: Thank you
Patrick. Now, we are going to go back to CES one last time to do a little
something something with automated cars. I should
mention by the way that Alex needs to get out of here really quick. So we are
going to just keep talking. But, until we get to that we’ve got a CES bit for
all the people who want to know about the latest and greatest in self driving
cars. So once again, push that magic button.
Fr.
Robert: If you have
been watching our CES coverage you know that one of the biggest announcements
came at the Audi keynote where they were able to drive one of their driverless
vehicles straight up onto the stage. This car in front of me is actually the
people that did the 500 mile trip driverless with a journalist behind the wheel
from San Francisco to Las Vegas. I am standing next to Clause from Audi and he
is going to explain how they did this technology wonder. Clause,
thank you very much for talking to us. First, this is based on an A7
frame?
Clause: Yes, this is completely based on a
serial A7 car as you can buy it today.
Fr.
Robert: You took an
existing frame that people can buy today and you decided to equip it with a
driverless technology. Why did you do that rather than go the super futuristic prototype?
Clause: As long as you stay close to the
serial architecture of a serial production car it might be easier to take over
parts of the functions into a serial car, that is what
we want to do in the next year.
Fr.
Robert: We’ve got a
really tech savvy audience and they are going to want to know the details of
how you made this magic go. So of course you’ve got sensors, what does this do?
How does this detect the environment around itself?
Clause: Yes, the sensors. First we use
different technologies for sensors because each sensor has it’s specific
advantages so we use radar, we use laser technology and we use of course video
technology to get the kind of 260 degree idea of what is happening around the
car at the moment and that is what is coming together in the trunk and in the
computer there to build up perception of the surrounding around the car over
and over again. So the car has a total view of what is happening around it. And
can decide which one of us it has to take, whether it needs to accelerate or
decelerate.
Fr.
Robert: One of the big
issues has been what happens when the GPS isn’t right? Or what happens when the
coordinates don’t quite match up to the road conditions? How does Audi deal
with that?
Clause: Yes, the car really reacts on what
it is seeing directly in the surrounding of itself. For example the navigation
map is a very important information in that driving, for example if you are
approaching a town or something like that which would be a situation the car couldn’t
handle yet, it will give takeover request to the driver in advance and say
there is a situation that had which I am not allowed or I cannot handle, please
take over the responsibility for the driving again.
Fr.
Robert: We are
going to give you more from CES but just remember the future of driving may not
have a driver. It may take a wild for us to get driverless cars, but right now
the future is here if you are looking for something that self-parks. I’m
standing next to Ryder from VW who is going to explain how the e-golf does it
all by itself. Ryder thank you very much for talking to us.
Ryder: Yes, thank you very much for being
here and enjoying our presentation. What we are presenting here is the trained
parking which is a concept and we build it in that car to show what is
possible. And we want to see what the reaction is of the customer because we
have many potential customers here at CES. Their reactions are very good on
that system already. So, what we have done is using sensors which we already
have in the car as a front facing camera behind the mirror and the electronic
sensors here in the car. So we are using the technique which we already have in
the car and bringing you closer and make this a smart solution for the
customer.
Fr.
Robert: That is
really important because unlike some of the other prototypes that we have seen
here at the show, you were saying that this technology is already in the car.
You just have to enable it. And if customers are looking at this and saying
this is a feature that I like, I like collision avoidance, I like the fact that
it can aggravate itself into a parking spot. That makes it an easy sell for
you. The question I have for you is what did you have to do to enable it? So to
make this work properly, what goes into the process of making a driverless
feature?
Ryder: Well this is not so easy I have to
say for sure. We have to do it in the design and all the process but on the
other hand we have to make sure we fulfill all the function of safety which is
a hard thing we have to fulfill. This is a very hard thing to fulfill to give
safety to the customer.
Fr.
Robert: I'm Father
Robert Ballecer and we are going to go back to CES
but first let’s see how this works.
Fr.
Robert: We have no
driver here, this is the e-golf that is available now
in the United States. A driverless system will be available next year. But I am
not going to touch a thing. Now in front of us there are
inductive plate so this knows where it’s charging station is. Remember
this is an all electric car.
What it will do is remember were those inductive plates are and when you tell
it to park itself it will automatically go over the plate, it detects that it
is now charging and it will stop. So if you are ever worried about making sure
that your electronic vehicle has enough juice, this will do it for you. It is a
lot like a Rumba that will automatically go to its charging station when it
needs a top off. Now, here is the nice thing. It will take care of itself, it
is all locked up but when I need the car back all I have to do is press a
little button on my fob and again, the car will do it itself. That is actually
moving. It’s got the rear camera. This actually drives better than my mom. It
drives a whole lot better than Jeff Needles. And don’t even get me started
about Burke. Now you have it ladies and gentlemen. Now remember, this
technology is actually built into the e-golf, so if you buy an e-golf it was
basically the software they had to modify. The sensors are here, the camera is
here, this power steering is already built into the car so VW is doing a great
thing in showing you the future in tech they already have.
Fr.
Robert: What I love
about this technology is everything they showed off in that e-golf currently
ships with the e-golf. It was just software. So they had to add a computer that
was fast enough to be able to interpret the data that it was getting from its
existing sensors in order to be able to do that.
Bryan: That is pretty cool.
Fr.
Robert: That is the
future of driving. However, there is one little wrinkle.
Bryan: Yeah, there was that one BMW story
that got released pretty recently.
Fr.
Robert: That was
just this last week. Because BMW reported that they had 2.2 million BMWs, Rolls-Royce
service and many cars that were vulnerable to a hack, they've got those
infotainment systems, the connective drive is what they call it. It uses mobile
data connections to give drivers the ability to lock their cars remotely but
BMW figured out that they hadn't really thought that anyone would ever attack
the system.
Bryan: Right. Because he
would do that?
Fr.
Robert: Some
enterprising folks figured out they could use their mobile device to break into
any one of those connected drive cars in under a minute.
Bryan: So basically that video game
watchdogs were they walk around with their cell phone…
Fr.
Robert: That’s it.
BMW is pushing an update and by the airing of the show it should be out, every
car should be patched. But the question becomes that automation is very cool
but, all of these systems get tied together. And the issue becomes you got
engineers who are designing something that they don’t really designed to be
connected to the Internet.
Bryan: The smarter the car, the smarter they
are going to have to be about the software.
Fr.
Robert: That’s
right. It gets ultra complicated. We see that all the
time on the enterprise site when I’m doing my show, This Week In Enterprise Tech. We talk about these devices from the 80s
that do things like monitor gas tanks and water pipes but they were created
before the Internet even existed so now that they are putting them on Internet
the security is most of the time not existent. We just covered a story where
there were 2500 automatic tank gauges in the United States that were connected
to the Internet but had no password whatsoever. If you knew the IP address, you
could connect and then you could mess with the fuel gauges at a gas station or
completely disable the pumping network.
Bryan: These are some scary growing pains
for the Internet of things.
Fr.
Robert: The
Internet of things that probably shouldn’t be on the Internet.
Bryan: Right. And I am kind of a driving
enthusiast, I like to drive and so I am okay with them but I do also like the
idea of being able to hop in the car and just say take me to the city and be
commuting for 50 minutes and so I can hang out with my iPad. But, now it is a
little scary too.
Fr.
Robert: Now, Bryan,
we announce this before that Alex does need to go so we should be nice and end
the episode. But instead, Alex lets go ahead and do that parting shot.
Bryan: You know what's really a surprise
is that we never get to the parting shot.
Fr.
Robert: We never do
but on this one episode. We were given permission to play this video. This was
recovered from a DJI phantom, of course it’s always a
DJI phantom that will crash at the base of this building. Now anyone who has
seen these videos or videos like this, knows exactly
what happened. The DJI Phantom lost signal and it does what is called return to
home. So it is returning to a GPS coordinate that unfortunately those GPS
coordinates happened to be on the other side of this building. So here is the
great part. It recovers, and then it lost signal again.
Bryan: It is going to go home again. Awwww….
Fr.
Robert: This
Happened on Super Bowl Sunday. So sad. The man who
recovered this drone, he actually returned it to the owner.
Bryan: That was nice of him.
Fr.
Robert: Which was really nice.
Bryan: Did they guy have his address labeled on it?
Fr.
Robert: No he put
it on YouTube and he said, does this belong to
anybody? And the guy came forward. Everyone in the comment said you should have
turned this into the police. Are you kidding me?
Bryan: Can you imagine being in the
building having a sip of your coffee? It is coming back for us everybody get down.
Fr.
Robert: But, the
really horrible part about all of that is that was downtown Honolulu. That was Waikiki, that was right next to the beaches. Which means it
is an incredibly populated area.
Bryan: That could have easily landed on
somebody.
Fr.
Robert: That debris
could've landed on somebody. That is just… don’t do that. We were talking about
pilots doing stupid things, that is a stupid thing
don’t do it. The thing is the DJI Phantom did what it is programmed to do. If
it loses signal it returns home, which is why you never fly it in an area that
has uneven terrain like down town.
Bryan: The other one I remember seeing
before that was the one where the guy was flying it in a canyon and it hit this
beautiful landscape and then it starts going home right into the killer rocks.
Fr.
Robert: A cool
feature, but this is why I actually agree with the FAA. And that is your drone
should always be in line of sight. If you fly beyond line of sight you are just
asking for things like that to happen. Because if you can’t
see it then you can’t react to something that is happening.
Bryan: That was a silly video and I’m glad
nobody got hurt.
Fr.
Robert: I am too.
Now folks we know this was a lot of material, especially a fix for the DJI
phantom and for the tips that Patrick had for his Aman mask. We are going to make sure that we get all those in the show notes. Which,
Bryan, where can they find those?
Bryan: They can find them at twit.tv/KH
and all our prior episodes are stored in loving order on the twit website. You
can also find links for subscribing so you can download the HD video if you
prefer or whichever strikes your fancy.
Fr.
Robert: Whatever
version you need for your device of choice you can get it from our show notes
page. Also don’t forget that we have a Google plus group with over 8000 users.
It is a fantastic community for a makers and DIYers.
We’ve got people who have been doing it for years and people who are brand-new
to the game. Get interested in quad copters, networking, building your computer
or whatever it might be there going to be people in there who are like-minded.
Jump in. That is especially a good place to go when you want us to show off
your work because we pull a lot of our ideas straight from our G-plus
community.
Bryan: Yeah. I definitely see a lot of
quad copter people who got them during the holidays and now there are questions
on how to fix things.
Fr.
Robert: Exactly. My
favorite ones are, so I got that wide copter you told me to buy an how do I get out of a tree? Also if you don’t like G-plus
you can also find us on Twitter. That is also a good place to give us ideas,
suggests guests for the show or just check out what we do. He loves to ride and
I love to fly my quad copter. You can find me @PadreSJ.
Bryan: And I’m @cranky_hippo.
Fr.
Robert: Until next
time, I’m Father Robert Ballecer.
Bryan: And we won’t waste any more time…
Fr.
Robert: Alex really
needs to go.
Bryan: You can follow that empty chair
@anelf3.
Fr.
Robert: See this is
what happens, this is what happens when your show goes
too long. I’m Father Robert Ballecer without anelf3.
Bryan: And I’m Bryan Burnett without
anelf3.
Fr.
Robert: And now
that you know how…
Bryan: Go do it! Go do stuff. Alex left,
so the audience needs to go.