Skydiver can move on the ground or be lifted on a weather balloon. During its whole mission the robot measures the background resp. cosmic radiation and capture videos, which are stored on a micro SD card.
The body is a plastic lunch box, quite stabile and easy to drill. I have replaced the previous track platform by a RC buggy chassis:
The Geiger counter clicks will be transmitted by a hacked 0.5W walkie-talkie:
On its top of the robot will be a release mechanism mounted to seperate the robot from the weather ballon when the required altitude is reached (timer):
The parachute is made from Nylon and has a diameter of 1.5m:
The camera is mounted above the ping. The ultrasonic sensor and camera point downward during descent. I am planning to use two retrorockets, mounted on the robot, to decelerate the fall at the last few meters. The rockets are triggered by the ping. If the surface is reached (and the robot still not damaged), the parachute will be decoupled and ping and camera horizontal aligned before the robot continue its journey on the ground.
Maybe some test runs with a crash test lunchbox. You could fill it with something that will indicate how much force is received on landing. Something cool and high-tech. Like eggs. ; j
The robot will be released around 1km above ground and the parachute is quite big and should be visible. Additional the walkie-talkie transmitter can be used as tracking device. I have then to mount a Yagi antenna on the second walkie-talkie.
I don’t know which RC chassis it is exactly. I got it second hand from a friend who is running a small model shop here in Shanghai, chassis plus motor controller for 40 bucks.
