Christmas Buoy Bot Progress Report

Merry Christmas, everyone! It’s the festive season, but you may be wondering—where’s the Buoy Bot? Well, it’s not in the water yet and still a cart running around my driveway and here’s why...

I've gone Back to School

After watching the America's Cup buoy spinning endlessly in circles, I realized it was time to go back to basics and refine my knowledge of MicroPython. I’ve been diving deep into Raspberry Pi Pico W Lessons for Absolute Beginners on YouTube, I am currently  on  video lesson 49 of 101. What's the goal? To master every aspect of MicroPython and create the most reliable electronic pin mark in New Zealand!

New Additions to the Design

1. Gyros and Accelerometers:
   By adding a 6-axis gyro and accelerometer, the Buoy Bot will achieve millimeter-level accuracy at all times to the mircosecond. These sensors will provide real-time feedback on position and orientation, eliminating delays caused by GPS and compass lag. When the RTK GPS and magnetic compass report back, they’ll verify for any drift or errors, creating a robust and precise navigation system to the millimeter with no lag.

2. Improved Wind Measurement:
   A new wind anemometer will replace reliance on an old data intensive old Windex. The plan is to avoid the issues like those seen in the America's Cup buoy. On one occasion, conflicting offshore and onshore breezes caused the buoy’s Windex to spin uncontrollably.  The buoy started spining making things worse, instead of better, and the buoy spun around in circles. I’m determined not to repeat that coder’s oversite and probably an all-night debugging session!

The Path Forward

The Buoy Bot designer still has many months of learning, development and testing ahead. With these new enhancements above, it promises to be more accurate, intelligent, and reliable than ever. In the meantime, I’ll continue my MicroPython lessons and coding experiments to ensure it hopefully perform flawlessly when it finally hits the water someday.  Not this Christmas :(   I will keep you updated on my progress as I learn more....

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Cheers, Graham

https://sites.google.com/site/tgarsc/241225_bouy_bot_back_to_school
https://sites.google.com/site/tgarsc/24_buoy_bot
https://sites.google.com/site/tgarsc/240920_buoy_bot_update
https://sites.google.com/site/tgarsc/240822_buoy_bot_update

Raspberry Pi Pico W Lessons for Absolute Beginners - YouTube 

Making the invisible visible - https://youtu.be/cK-6iH3x-tg