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$96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

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Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#171

Post by clbrmbr »

I strongly object to building weapons. It is not right. Raise your consciousness, young hacker.

I grew up building homemade rocket engines to power model rockets. I even programmed a flight computer in ASM.

I was always quite risk averse and, then being only shortly after 9/11, I told my friend I worried what we were doing may be illegal or otherwise get us in trouble. So he picked up the phone and called the county fire marshal. My friend explained EXACTLY what we were doing, down to the potassium nitrate and the homemade black powder and nitrocellulose igniters. The fire marshal paused for a long moment and said “it’s not against any law I’m aware of. Just don’t start any fires.” We proceeded to have many successful flights and participated in NERF (a rocketry club that used to get 12kft clearance from FAA before the govt started stonewalling us).

I feel very fortunate to have grown up in an environment where that was permitted. I fear that my children will not have the same privilege—for many reasons, but one factor is people putting violent things like this on GitHub. Please take it down.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#172

Post by rdtsc »

lukan wrote: post #100
tamimio wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s ok if it’s failing to do the job as intended, learning is acquired, and it looks fun to build, I am in the field and I find it great homemade concept. Realistically, I doubt there’s ANY system out there will be able to counter small weaponized drones that are flown manually let alone with AI, you might have some workarounds, but never a real counter.

"Realistically, I doubt there’s ANY system out there will be able to counter small weaponized drones that are flown manually " Why would lasers not work? Those cheap drones are made from plastic, if you have a laser powerful enough and a target guidance system (like a camera and a PI) - then you would just need enough of them.

At very short distances and with a lot of power, perhaps. Despite what we see in movies laser beams diverge. And then with distance it’s harder to track moving objects precisely to hit the same spot long enough to melt it.

At that point might as well spend the money to use a kinetic weapon with basic tracking and ballistic calculations.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#173

Post by K0balt »

This isn’t a serious project, in the terms of something that will disrupt warfighting. It’s basically a resume to work as a junior engineer at Anduril.

Interesting stuff, neat project, nothing new at all here except his multi camera sensing, which isn’t new but his implementation is interesting.

IDK if maybe it’s a political statement or some kind of obtuse sarcasm, but it seems like he drank way too much of his buzzword cool-aid lol. It’s probably just a job application though.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#175

Post by dcrazy »

make3 wrote: post #138
mikkupikku wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I don't think this project is a serious threat as a weapon, it's more interesting if viewed as a politically provocative stunt, to get people thinking about the relationship between technology and war.

I always wonder why rockets are millions of dollars each, that seems insane to me.

It’s not a complete explanation, but I was awed by the precision of the shower screens used in modern rocket engines. In the 60s it might have sufficed to just spray fuel into the combustion chamber using some nozzles, but now we have highly precise matrices of micro-perforations that maximize combustion.

Also if you want to harden the rocket against EMP attacks you need an inertial guidance system, and those things also demand extreme precision.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#176

Post by roysting »

myko wrote: post #136
roysting wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to pay attention please. Let’s try this; are you opposed to the government pumping 100 rounds into a person for some imagined “threat” they rationalize about after the fact? Koresh was not a great guy, kind of a piece of shit, just like the people the cops usually gun down, but that does not mean you need to take the low IQ government bait to excuse their lying and wanton murder and constant evil.

I'm okay with criticizing the government response - they should have arrested him in town. But pretending he was not an awful person is beyond the pale, and I felt the comment I replied to came close to that line.

I don’t think anyone claims he wasn’t and awful person, let alone some great person, but it all comes down to government installing the propaganda script in your mind likely all your life through “education” and “entertainment”.

It’s amazing to me that people who complained about the government’s evils at various points or at the very least whine about how much of a meanie poopy-head the other team is, will just give the government a pass simply because they took the government propaganda bait; hook, line, and sinker.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#177

Post by rdtsc »

tjoff wrote: post #118
condensedcrab wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At long distances the small cross section of the drone requires tight focusing (expensive optics) or a high power, preferably pulsed laser (expensive laser) or both. Not impossible but many times more expensive than the drone

Expensive is fine since it is reusable.

At some point it itself becomes a target. It has to be able to get almost 100% kills, otherwise the enemy can swarm it with cheap drones, destroy the expensive installation, then continue as before.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#178

Post by slicktux »

tzury wrote: post #88

There are 2 short segments in the video showing the actual performance and thus far it is a complete [1] failure [2]. The guy has a talent, and he put together a nice prototype based on OpenRocket [3], but with all due respect, this is not a rocket, and you are not going to win any war with this toy, even if all your enemy has are rocks thrown at you from pretty much similar distance. The remix of computer games / Uk…

Regardless, he made a prototype rocket enclosure and he seems to have the software down… I think the propulsion system will be the easy part. Hardest part will be tuning the PID so that the rocket goes where he wants it to. Then incorporating his tracking system will be another challenge of itself but that’s because of the form factor. As long as his calculus and linear algebra is good I see than being successful. Either way I’d hire simply to be a prototype engineer. Either Anduril or CIA would hire him in a heartbeat for prototyping.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#180

Post by ge96 »

jacquesm wrote: post #157
vidarh wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to win any wars with it if you can use them to sow confusion, obscure the firing of more serious rockets, and/or trigger a sufficiently more expensive response. It clearly needs more work, but if an amateur can get this far at this low cost, odds are you'll see attempts at overwhelming attackers or defense systems by sheer volume with cheap decoys like this long before they become an actual threat in a…

With a 3D printer and some 'ordinary household chemicals' to quote a certain movie you can do pretty scary stuff.

McGuyver pouring sap on a pinecone

Hiya! (Grenade)

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