This week we attempted multiple powered and unpowered drop tests. In addition, I noticed in one of the videos that our two parachute configuration was creating a axis upon which our device would sway back and forth. To try and mitigate this, we attempted to add and drop with an additional parachute. While this seemed to remove some of the swaying, the third parachute did not fully deploy, so we weren’t able to reap all of it’s benefits.
Another issue we found was that the power of our system didn’t seem enough to move the drop unit a meaningful amount. We are working to fix this by attempting to add an additional motor to each side, to double the thrust. Hopefully this will address this problem, but may add more complexity as we need to double the amount of motors and controllers, so weight may increase considerably. This is what I will continue to focus on this week. If this works however, we are on schedule. The other concern I had is that with a proper housing made out of a robust material, our total weight will be significantly higher, perhaps putting a restriction on the payload weight we can withstand during a drop.