Author Topic: The Carmack 100kft Micro Prize (Read 35127 times)

Moe Grills · « **Reply #20 on:** 07/15/2011 09:15 pm »

It appears to me from the posts here, and elsewhere, that Downix, Jongoff, and Danderman are serious activists, developers and even financiers in the field of private space projects and rocketry.
Good of you, guys. Keep it up!
I also am aware that Gary Hudson (and his ex-colleague; Tom Brosz), and perhaps John Carmack as well post here at NSF; albeit more discreetly.

Yes, the conclusion drawn that 100K foot altitude for rocketery
is a serious and difficult challenge. I don't dispute that at all.
But 100K foot altitude as a goal doesn't inspire impatient run-of-the-mill
space enthusiasts; there are lots of them. Their collective, though impatient and oft ignorant voices, and their pocketbooks, shouldn't be dismissed.
Yes. A lot of funding for amateur and private space projects nowadays
is siphoned from profits made in Silicon Valley (or other cyber enterprises).
But what happens if the "bubble bursts" proverbially speaking in those cyber enterprises?
What will those private space-project financiers do in such a situation?
Will they shut the tap, or seriously reduce the flow to the private space-projects that they generously fund now?
Even the likes of Bigelow, Musk, Anderson, etc. do not have unlimited
invulnernable financial resources.

NotGncDude · « **Reply #21 on:** 07/19/2011 01:32 am »

I don't think John Carmack hangs out here. They hang out at spacefellowship.com

Ben · « **Reply #22 on:** 08/11/2011 12:25 am »

Hi folks,

I'm Ben Brockert, and I finally broke down and signed up for a NSF account. I was surprised 'Ben' was still available.

I worked with Jon Goff at Masten Space. I am now at Armadillo Aerospace, where I do a variety of engineering things, as well as shooting video and photos and writing the website updates, including compiling this competition one. Tonight I'll add the couple more entrants who have announced launches.

If you have any specific questions, let me know.

jongoff · « **Reply #23 on:** 08/11/2011 12:27 am »

Welcome Ben!

Jason1701 · « **Reply #24 on:** 08/11/2011 01:23 am »

I've been following you on Twitter, Ben, so I'm glad to see you here! I'm always eager to hear what Armadillo is up to.

go4mars · « **Reply #25 on:** 08/11/2011 03:27 am »

Excellent!

Jason1701 · « **Reply #26 on:** 10/03/2011 04:34 am »

Just came back from Balls. No one won the Carmack Prize. There were some rockets that definitely passed 100k, but none got the ping. The MIT 3-stager was one of the more spectacular failues; it had a good first stage burn, then the second stage lit horizontally. The third stage lit horizontally or maybe a bit downwards.

savuporo · « **Reply #27 on:** 10/04/2011 08:24 am »

The reports are trickling in on ARocket. It feels like very little of what flies ever gets really properly tested before.

Maybe a prize with "do it first" award just gives the wrong incentive to be first and skimp on proper testing. But then again, most entrants claim that they would have flown anyway, prize or no prize. Perhaps a prize that would double its worth every year would give the right curve of incentive ...

Or maybe rocketry, even hobby rocketry, really is as hard as its made out to be. Carmack's own ten years of hard starts with Armadillo would seem to indicate the latter.

Robotbeat · « **Reply #28 on:** 10/04/2011 01:30 pm »

Savuporo: Many actually did come very close to achieving the goal, at least 2 or 3 got above 100,000ft, and many had recovered their rocket. But getting a GPS ping about 100kft proved to be perhaps the hardest goal. Pretty darned difficult to test that on the ground.

Remember, we're talking about amateurs, here. The whole point of the prize is a response to the typical "Pssh, recovering from 100kft and getting a GPS signal is a piece of cake." See, it's not so easy.

The prize is still pretty young, and many of these folks were planning on flying anyway.

dunderwood · « **Reply #29 on:** 10/04/2011 03:06 pm »

I believe the Carmack prize also requires a report to be written. Again, to help dispel the trend of neat things being flown, and then no one ever hearing about them aside from third hand anecdotes.

savuporo · « **Reply #30 on:** 10/08/2011 06:26 pm »

Quite a few here probably read ARocket as well, but for others this is well worth watching

http://ddeville.com/derek/Qu8k.html

Youtube links mid-page, full one http://bit.ly/p6BjPM

Jason1701 · « **Reply #31 on:** 10/08/2011 06:40 pm »

The Qu8k rocket did not record a GPS ping above 100,000 feet, but the team is trying to claim the Carmack Prize anyway based on accelerometer and camera data.

Moe Grills · « **Reply #32 on:** 10/08/2011 08:06 pm »

Quote from: Jason1701 on 10/08/2011 06:40 pm

The Qu8k rocket did not record a GPS ping above 100,000 feet, but the team is trying to claim the Carmack Prize anyway based on accelerometer and camera data.

With the camera data, you can use the curvature of the Earth's horizon to give a good (but not exact) approximation of apogee.

BTW, my congratulations to the Qu8k rocket team.
Alas, they fall short of the CXST team's record amateur altitude of approximately 72 miles up.

ugordan · « **Reply #33 on:** 10/08/2011 09:40 pm »

Quote from: Moe Grills on 10/08/2011 08:06 pm

With the camera data, you can use the curvature of the Earth's horizon to give a good (but not exact) approximation of apogee.

Not really. Any fish-eye-like wide FOV camera will induce much greater curvature/distortion (even upward curvature) depending on which way the camera is pointed. Just look at shuttle SRB camera videos.

Robotbeat · « **Reply #34 on:** 10/08/2011 10:03 pm »

Quote from: ugordan on 10/08/2011 09:40 pm

Quote from: Moe Grills on 10/08/2011 08:06 pm
With the camera data, you can use the curvature of the Earth's horizon to give a good (but not exact) approximation of apogee.

Not really. Any fish-eye-like wide FOV camera will induce much greater curvature/distortion (even upward curvature) depending on which way the camera is pointed. Just look at shuttle SRB camera videos.

You're wrong because they don't have just a fish-eye camera. In fact, the first on-board camera in that video is non-fisheye: (starting at 2:53).
Most of these rockets have two or more HD cameras, that I've seen. Still, I think the idea is to use accelerometer data (and integrate it) in lieu of GPS data. Not as convincing, and probably doesn't qualify for the prize.

And besides, with a good enough understanding of the camera's lens, you can still reconstruct the curvature of the Earth with a fish-eye lens.

ugordan · « **Reply #35 on:** 10/08/2011 10:12 pm »

Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/08/2011 10:03 pm

Quote from: ugordan on 10/08/2011 09:40 pm
Quote from: Moe Grills on 10/08/2011 08:06 pm
With the camera data, you can use the curvature of the Earth's horizon to give a good (but not exact) approximation of apogee.

Not really. Any fish-eye-like wide FOV camera will induce much greater curvature/distortion (even upward curvature) depending on which way the camera is pointed. Just look at shuttle SRB camera videos.
You're wrong because they don't have just a fish-eye camera. In fact, the first on-board camera in that video is non-fisheye:

I did watch the video, you know. I only mentioned fish-eye because it's the extreme case of the distortion I talked about.

But by all means, go ahead and extract the altitude out of that. Good luck with achieving any meaningful precision using a mathematical model of real-world optics.

Jason1701 · « **Reply #36 on:** 10/09/2011 04:01 am »

Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/08/2011 10:03 pm

I think the idea is to use accelerometer data (and integrate it) in lieu of GPS data. Not as convincing, and probably doesn't qualify for the prize.

Agreed. I think the rules are pretty clear:

Quote

The rocket must record a GPS serial log of the flight with at least one report above 100,000ft plus the launch altitude.

Robotbeat · « **Reply #37 on:** 10/09/2011 05:06 am »

Quote from: ugordan on 10/08/2011 10:12 pm

Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/08/2011 10:03 pm
Quote from: ugordan on 10/08/2011 09:40 pm
Quote from: Moe Grills on 10/08/2011 08:06 pm
With the camera data, you can use the curvature of the Earth's horizon to give a good (but not exact) approximation of apogee.

Not really. Any fish-eye-like wide FOV camera will induce much greater curvature/distortion (even upward curvature) depending on which way the camera is pointed. Just look at shuttle SRB camera videos.
You're wrong because they don't have just a fish-eye camera. In fact, the first on-board camera in that video is non-fisheye:

I did watch the video, you know. I only mentioned fish-eye because it's the extreme case of the distortion I talked about.

But by all means, go ahead and extract the altitude out of that. Good luck with achieving any meaningful precision using a mathematical model of real-world optics.

It's really not that hard if the rocket achieved over 120,000 ft and you're just trying to show it broke 100,000 ft. And yeah, I actually did calculate the curvature a little bit (the arc of the horizon across the screen of about 1300 pixels is 16 pixels wide), but I need more information (like the field of view). You only need to get +/- 20% in order to show going above 100,000 feet.

And the distortion isn't linear between fisheye and a typical lens... In a typical lens, straight lines are pretty straight. The typical distortions in such a lens are (at least at long distances) much less pronounced than the curvature seen in the first onboard video. And there are plug-ins for Photoshop (etc) that can correct this distortion for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion_(optics)#Software_correction
and many cameras can correct it even in the firmware, but it's still relatively small compared to the horizon's curvature seen in the video (and everything that should be straight is pretty darned straight in the video... within a pixel or so, when lined up in Photoshop, compared to the 16 pixels of off-straight for the horizon curvature at apogee... which should give us reasonable confidence we can get within +/-20% after we plug the curvature, focal length, etc, into a function to get our altitude... especially if we correct any lens distortion).

ugordan · « **Reply #38 on:** 10/09/2011 02:34 pm »

As I said, I remain highly skeptical that curvature measurements can be made that precise. If onboard video is really all one has to work with, my approach would be to measure the angular size of ground features directly below and comparing with simulations for various altitudes. Much more sensitive to altitude than fuzzy horizon curvature.

But above all, probably integrating accelerometer data and trying to show that in the worst case of it overestimating acceleration and underestimating air drag deceleration would still produce over 100,000 ft. Their accelerometer data quality looks good so the only question is if one accepts it as legitimate.

savuporo · « **Reply #39 on:** 10/09/2011 06:38 pm »

Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/09/2011 05:06 am

It's really not that hard if the rocket achieved over 120,000 ft and you're just trying to show it broke 100,000 ft. ..

I have followed the history of this for a while .. Carmack laid out rules very clear, and maybe for a good reason.

Quote

The rocket must record a GPS serial log of the flight with at least one report above 100,000ft plus the launch altitude.

Part of the rules, period. Balloon flights have made above that line with GPS tracking OK, why wouldnt a rocket get a lock ?
See here = http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/GPSrcvrsvs60kft.htm

I'm sure you know that the CSXT SpaceShot in 2004 is also disputed on Arocket, due to lack of verifiable data.