Field Day!

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November 3, 2014.  Clear and cool with a light breeze – a perfect morning for field work.  Students from Professor Pittman’s GEOG 331 – Exploring Maps and Geographic Technologies course gathered in the parking lot at the north end of campus for some balloon aerial photography.  Jason explained some of the basics and gave a safety orientation.  Rule #1:  Anyone handling the line must glove up!

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As we filled the balloon, we realized that we had miscalculated the helium required.  The tank wasn’t quite full, and the balloon wouldn’t pull the picavet with the Canon SX130.  Forced to improvise, we clipped a much lighter iPhone rig (running the TimeLapse app) directly to the string attachment point, and we were ready to fly.

Explaining the Picavet

With the lighter camera setup, the balloon flew fine, and students walked the trails that run through the wetlands.

We uploaded the photos to Google Drive, and over the next week, students will use Map Knitter to stitch the photos together and georeference them.

Fall Colors from Overhead

Streaming Balloon Video

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For Folsom Lake College’s 10th anniversary celebration, we rigged up the balloon to stream video to a monitor on the ground, using a custom rig with a POV camera, battery, and transmitter, all housed in an apple juice bottle rig.

Apple Juice Bottle Streaming Video Rig

Never having tried the setup before, we launched the balloon, and streamed the video to a little field monitor.  Everything worked perfectly, and on the first try besides!  Children seemed to appreciate the balloon’s eye view of the college.

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We had to pull the balloon down and hide it from the falcons that were flown once or twice throughout the day.  Apparently balloons are used in training the birds, and we were concerned that they would go after it.

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After the falcons had finished their flights, we launched the balloon again, now streaming to a much bigger monitor stationed at our table. Once again, things worked exactly as planned.  The video was surprisingly clear and the stream stable, save a few transmission hiccups from time to time.

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Next steps include building a dual rig, with a camera for still images, and the streaming gear to aid in positioning the balloon. We also need to explore fins or other means of stabilizing the streaming rig, as it got to swinging pretty severely at times. It was attached directly to the string attachment point, so it’s entirely possible that hanging it from a picavet will take care of the swing.

Web Accessibility – An Open Online Course

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Today, I sent out the following to all FLC faculty:

If you teach online, or plan to in the future, consider enrolling in this free online Web Accessibility course, which begins on October 20th. See below for details. It’s co-sponsored by D2L, so the content will likely be applicable. Please let me know if you plan to enroll – perhaps we can get a cohort organized and work on the course together.

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Web Accessibility MOOC for Online Educators (Fall 2014)
Many eLearning educators are under-prepared to deal with web accessibility issues. This free MOOC, sponsored by Portland Community College and D2L, provides a free professional development opportunity to help eLearning professionals meet the challenges of addressing accessibility in online learning. Course begins October 20th.

Registration is now open: https://opencourses.desire2learn.com/cat/course/web-accessibility-7195/
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I registered myself, and have already heard from a couple of folks who plan to complete the course, which will strengthen FLC’s overall capacity when it comes to addressing accessibility.

First Balloon Flight

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With the easing of the helium shortage, we finally acquired a tank or two of the noble gas, and headed up to the El Dorado Center yesterday to launch our new imaging platform. First flights are always a little nerve-wracking, with safety considerations and weather variables and unknowns, but we drafted a protocol, filled the balloon, and sent it up.

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We had used half the tank the other day on an aborted attempt – the balloon popped – so we ran out of gas a little short of the balloon’s capacity.  While it lifted the picavet, it wasn’t especially enthusiastic about it. We brought it back to the ground, changed the 300# line to 100#, removed the bucket, and sent it back up. These weight tweaks worked well, and the balloon pulled the load gently but definitively.

Release the picavet!

A balloon is quite a different animal than a kite, and flying it took some getting used to. All in all, quite a bit less stressful than kites or quadcopters, as the helium counteracts (most of) the drop-out-of-the-sky, camera crushing effects of gravity. We were able to capture this nice image of the El Dorado County Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden, a work in progress, and one that we can hopefully document over time with additional flights.

Demo Garden from the Air

Overall, a satisfying success.  Next steps include constructing a new, lighter picavet specifically for the balloon, and finalizing the POV streaming rig we plan to fly over the crowd at a college event in October.

Online Educators Roundup 05.02.14

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A link to the #adventurecast:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/adventurecast

A link to Presentain:

http://presentain.com/

Outstanding questions:

Archive – where does the archive go, and what are the permissions?
Twitter – does the tweet link to the slide, or the presentation?
Freemium – what are the limitations, and can one load the system up with content and then pay later?
All of these are probably easily answered by the community! 🙂

Having a Field Day

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Puppy in a Backpack
On Friday, April 4th, Jason and I went out to Cronan Ranch Regional Trails Park to do some recon, his new puppy in tow (and eventually in the pack when she tired of hiking).  Though we brought kites, rain and lack of wind kept us out of the air.  We were able to formulate a flight plan for the following Friday, and met a group of students for some hands-on learning.

Students paired up and took to the trails armed with Trimble GPS units, gathering data for the American River Conservancy.

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After a few hours of trail mapping, the group met at the rendezvous point, and we got out the kites. The maiden voyage of the 12′ delta ended up with the kite atop an oak tree, but a quick climb freed it for another go. Though there seemed to be plenty of wind at ground level, the kite just wouldn’t stay up, so we switched it out for the 9′ delta. Despite valiant efforts by a couple of students, we weren’t able to get up into any stable air, so we didn’t end up with any photos.

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Despite the unsuccessful flights, students were enthusiastic about the process, and about applying what they’ve learned.  There is no substitute for field work!

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Glass!

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A few months ago, I wrote a proposal to equip three faculty members – myself, and professors Fowler (CIS) and Pittman (Geosciences) with Glass for the purposes of instructional R&D.    After a bunch of budget and purchasing contortions, the units were ordered and arrived just yesterday.

Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

  • Google Wallet is the only way to pay for the devices, and this made purchasing relatively difficult.  With the help of folks in Business Services locally and Purchasing at the DO, we were able to make it happen.
  • Glass won’t work with our college wireless networks.  To use WiFi, glass needs a simple network + passcode, and our networks around here require much more than that.  We’re working to see if IT can get some easier-to-access R&D wireless network going.
  • It seems to be way more difficult for folks who wear glasses to find the visual sweet spot.  Not so for those without glasses, or for those with contacts.  I’m a glasses wearer, so I need to make an appointment to get prescription lenses for my Glass frames.
  • I’m stymied by the network issue, and have only been able to use the device at home.  As such, I’ve only done basic things – “Okay, Glass – Google such and such,” and “Okay Glass – send a message to so and so.”  That sort of thing.
  • People are excited about it, as it’s something many have seen or heard about in the news.

More to follow…

Ok, Glass...

Picavet Bucket Mod

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Bucket Mod

It’s been pretty quiet on the flying front this winter, but we’ve got a field day planned for Cronan Ranch tomorrow, so I took a few minute to mod the picavet.  In the prior incarnation, the bucket was not attached to the picavet cross, but was instead sandwiched between the cross and the camera mount.  As such, every time the camera mount had to be changed, the bucket came with it, making for some annoying alignment issues.

To remedy, I cut away the middle of the top of the bucket (to make camera attachment a little easier, and to make the camera screen visible from outside of the bucket – the camera is always pointed straight down, and without access to the screen it’s sometimes difficult to tell if the camera is firing ), and attached the bucket directly to the picavet cross via two machine screws.  Much better.  Let’s hope the predicted winds arrive tomorrow…