Hello, I am looking for help because I am in WAY over my head (ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED)! I started a science fair project with two other people and we're planning on completing it this year. We decided to do a project involving unmanned drones. We have narrowed our project down to creating a 3D imaging vehicle that operates autonomously in land, water, and air. I am planning on using the XBOX Kinects in order to do the 3D imaging and hook it up into an "omnothopter - esque" machine, basically our mechanical engineer plans to implement a variety of different small engines for air and a few gripped engines for aquatic conditions ( I will post a rough blue print once he finishes creating it ).
The problem I am facing right now is just to large to describe, I have no idea where to start on such a big project, I need to find the SDK the Kinects functions in, get the 3D imaging source code... find the software for it all, then I need to successfully test and create the vehicle. If anyone has any knowledge whatsoever to help me out I would appreciate it so much, anything from a good cheap way to grab a small engine to a link to the open source code for the Kinects would be appreciated. Im doing as much research as I can but I have about 5 million other things I need to focus on as well.
Email is shift@dcgames.com
I will be updating this thread actively as I get the blue prints and as we progress so anyone's advice would be wonderful, thank you all !
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EDIT: 12:21 AM 7/10/2011
According to my mechanical engineer the design we're going for is kind of car like. I attached a picture of what we're thinking of, the front two rotors would be for flight and we would have a pair of much smaller back two with grips on them so they can function in water.. the idea is to attain bouyancy using a series of air pumps / baloons so that all the engines have to deal with is horizontal motion.
"one steering wheel in the front
two wheels inthe back
jet engine in the back
and two rotating propellers on the front
i'm sure there will be slight if not more modifications"
^ My mech. Basically says that he's going off a model he found for an air / land vehicle and going to modify it further. The kinects would sit inside the glass dome in the middle and would be encased in a solid plastic chassis made to prevent water damage. This of course would affect our 3d imaging so I have my other friend working on finding a suitable material will have a constant inputable rate of refraction so that we can work the Kinects.
The last problem we're facing is the refraction of the kinects in water, my thoughts were to either use a thermal imaging system or a sonar imaging system for underwater, however I believe sonar imaging systems are pretty big and want to try and keep this to... like 3 feet large MAX, so any suggestions there would be helpful.