I figured with the conclusion of the Microsoft Robotics @ Home Competition, I should post updates to some other projects I'm working on.
I'm currently the project lead for a small team of students at UC Berkeley developing a tiny satellite, called a CubeSat. One advantage of CubeSats is that instead of having one big, expensive satellite getting data from one point, you can have many cheap, small satellites collecting data over a really wide area. Also, many CubeSats can be packed into rockets as a secondary payload, which reduces costs.
So far, I've mainly been doing design and prototyping. Most of the circuitry is still in the design phase and I haven't ordered the PCBs yet. You can see a picture of the structure below. (Thanks to Sam Cohen for doing a custom design in SolidWorks!) It was cut by a CNC waterjet in the Etcheverry machine shop. You can also see a little prototype electrical system with a microcontroller, camera, microSD card port, and temperature sensor. Right now, I'm working on designing the power system, command and data handling system, as well as setting up a communication system using ham radio. I hope to have my team conduct a high altitude balloon test by the end of the next school year.
If you would like to know more or if you're a student at Berkeley and want to get involved or you represent a company and are interested in sponsoring our project, please contact me: About Me -> View my complete profile -> Contact me
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