Lessons Learned Fri 7

Experience

Capsim has been really challenging this week. I made a few mistakes this week mostly in forecasting and it really has not paid off. When it comes to planning for the worst case scenario, I really need to be true to that. In both the 3rd and 4th round I was confident that I could increase my low tech market share by 2% and and in both cases I was wrong. In the second case I even had the best product, but I couldn’t see it because of I was unable to produce the right amount with the revision date so late in the year. I’m sad about that because I had so much automation my R&D times were horrible so the smallest revision, put the product at the end of the year. My second product actually did better than the first, able. Able by the way has a 54% contribution margin in the low tech. That’s with an automation of 10, but I admit I layed off some workers to get that variable cost down.

Reflection

Reflecting on these experiences I hope that I’m able to do better in the team rounds. I feel like I really got off to a bad start in the first round by not taking out loans, which lead to a lower leverage ratio. I was struggling to get that back up and surprisingly, by taking out the emergency loan I was able to get that up to the ideal zone. But after two emergency loans of $20,000 I wasn’t able to make a profit, which was disappointing. I was able to get back market share, so I believe if this were to go to eight rounds I might be able to pull it back.

Identifying Key Learnings

I’d say one of the key learnings was the customer survey score, after the huge disappointment in round 3 I went pack to the drawing board and really looked at why my products and done so poorly. Basically what happened is that I had forecasted for a market share of 22% but had cut back the quality of the MTBF to a minimum. This was a huge mistake in the low tech segment, who relies on quality, so my 20% market was cut back to 15% and the fourth round was 13% even with product modifications. However the fourth round was mostly held back do to a late revision date. Again, in the fourth round I was too optimistic, if I had forecasted at 15% I would have been right on the mark. I would have guessed I’d sell around 1243 including 45 days of extra inventory. I actually sold 995 which would have left me with 248 units of inventory, about 91 days of inventory. A little high but better than the current 200 days of inventory. Which caused another emergency loan. Worst case scenario is now my new best friend.

Action Planning

Planning from here on out I’ll have to go with the worst case. This may mean I’m more likely to stock out but stocking out is better than getting an emergency loan. As I demonstrated in round 4, sometime the worst case is still too high if the product drops market share unexpectedly. To help out with this I’ve made a rudimentary customer survey score calculator. It really only works for for price and MTBF, where it is really hard to tell how many points a product loses with every 0.1 the product is away in the perceptual map and in age. I think I’ll try a few practice rounds to see if I can get any difference.

Applying

As I’ve discussed there are several ways that I can apply the lessons I’ve learned this week. From relying on the worst case scenario, to not discounting the MTBF in the Low tech. I’m excited to try out these new concepts in the next team stage.

$100 Project Progress

I have officially completed the $100 challenge, I’ll have to rename it the $500 challenge because I’ve already passed 100 and 200 so my next goal is to earn $500. I’m sure that I’ll be able to do it by the end of october too. Right now I have at least $120 on custom orders to fill. That’s the worst case, charging $10 a bowl. My average sell price has been around $17.50 meaning that the next 12 bowls could turn into $200 to $300. I could not have had this success without the help of my family and the very generous donations from my customers. I was impressed with the value that they were able to see in my bowls. Their generosity encourages me to make better bowls. I’ve also come up with the idea to include a lifetime warranty on all the bowls. That way if ever one does break, I’d be happy to turn another for them. This week I’ve only sold 5 bowls and from that it’s generated over $200. To be exact my net income as of October 7 is $211.67. I’m excited to donate all this profit to a charity. I hope it will really make a difference is their life. I’ll make sure to find a great charity. I also sent out a few posts to my other classmates because I’d like to know how they are doing. I hope I’m not too far ahead of anyone so I’ve decided to help anyone out. I put my phone number in the discussion board so anyone can call me with any help they need. Hopefully this lead in the $500 challenge will help me catch up with my other classwork. I’ve really been learning quite a few things in this practical challenge, and I hope to continue to grow the business even though I’ll be taking it a little bit slower.

This week the $100 challenge is doing great. I’ve struggled to manage enough time to work on the project with my assignments. As I write this at 6:41PM on a Sunday Night I have struggled to complete my assignments on time. Working to 11PM every night isn’t good enough. I’ll need to somehow work more hours to get all my work done, I’m planning for 16 hour days during the week and I’ll have to extend that to the weekend. That would put me at 8 hours at work and 8 hours after work for school. Coupled with more time I’ll need to manage my time better. I’ll need to get right into the business of my assignments and not waste time. Another big problems is paying attention to deadlines. For the second time in this class I missed a discussion post that was incorrectly marked as due on the following Monday but should have been completed on this weeks Tuesday, and then allow for three days of follow up posts. I had to give up time on Saturday, time I had set aside to work on my business to complete a trivial assignment that should have been completed on Tuesday. On Saturday I was still able to list a few more bowls on the site and do a little a little sharing on facebook.  Tim’s Wood Bowls now has six bowls listed, it wasn’t the 10 bowls I had hoped, but I’ve set aside a few bowls for a few interested customers. If these sales go through I could likely generate a hundred dollars in profit this week, but it remains to be seen. I’m slightly discouraged about the etsy site, because of all the fees involved for listing and selling. Also shipping has been a pain. After taking a look at shipping, it seems that their shipping rates are aren’t working correct. Most of the shipping prices are overpriced, and even with the overcharging, the shipping prices were still inaccurate. For example the first bowl charged $5.54 on etsy but the actual cost was $6.80. I could add more to shipping but that would just lead to overpriced shipping problem. My brother who lives in Arizona came to visit over the weekend pointed out that it would cost over $15 to ship a $15 bowl to his address. This would end up discouraging customers to buy our bowls, when they were expecting to pay around $15 for a bowl but were charged twice that. We came to the conclusion that the prices were over the top for shipping, so we decided to change our strategy. Instead of charging for the bowl and shipping we would offer free shipping, allowing for the price displayed on the first page of the site to be the final price. This works out for us because we have a large supply of wood for the bowls so really the only expense is the shipping and whatever fees are charged by Etsy for listing and selling the bowl. In the end this should work out fine if we can keep the shipping price down and it will help give the customer an honest, square price.

Lessons Learned 9-23-16

It's been an incredibly long week but I have learned many great lessons so let's get started.

Surprisingly one of the biggest lessons I have learn was from the 5 minute video by Guy Kawasaki. He said simple make a meaning and a mantra and through out the mission statement. I believe I've seen this video before but this time it stood out to be. It was just a few months ago that Altek, our affiliate company had taken a day to develop a mission statement, so it was surprising to me to see Guy saying not to was time on a mission statement and instead develop a mantra. A mantra is a short phrase that describes your company. It's different from a slogan, Nike's "Just do It." A mantra for Nike is actually, "Authentic Athletic Performance." I've never head of this before but this captures the essence of the organization. The great thing about a mantra is that it works for both the salesperson and the customer. This has got me thinking about MINDS-i's mantra. I've noodled over this a bit and came up with and came up with: Teaching STEM through Robotics. I'm not completely convinced but it's the best I've got so far and it's better than what I've been using. Just the other day I said that and instantly caught the persons attention.  I'll try it more often.  

The $100 challenge. In my class we have been asked to start a small start-up with $20 with hopes to raise $100 dollars in profit. I think that it will be a great challenge as I have never run my own business or raised that much, so if I can do it, it will be a huge confidence boost. My plan is to turn wood bowls on the lathe. My dad has been turning bowls for a few years and has always wanted to start selling them so I thought that this was a great way to get the business started for him. There is really no cost on my end, except the time to turn the bowls. I really hope that this turns into a successful business. I made a shop on Etsy called Tim's Wood Bowls. Go and have a look and buy a bowl for charity. I sold my first bowl on Etsy this week, to my brother Chris, who was very excited to get started on the shop. I've also had a few other messages about people interested in buying bowls. I haven't had much time to set up the shop, turn bowls, or pursue any leads just because my schedule has been very full with all my classes and work. Right now I have another six bowls that I need to list on the website. The biggest challenge is going to be spending time on this project.

MINDS-i has been busy the past week, this Saturday is the BSA STEM University. I teach the robotics merit badge. We've developed a new inexpensive kit and made it available to the scouts. That in itself is quite the project. Today I took the time to contact every scout to make sure that they were prepared for the class. I was able to help them get the robot kit that they needed to complete the merit badge. I hope that each scout, leader, and parent can know the great service that we are doing for this. I look at this course almost like a college level class, but adjusted so that an 11 year student and understand it. It's important to note that it's not so much that the class is easy, but I am increasingly surprised at the enthusiasm of the scouts. Even at a young age they are capable of understanding this course.  It is a fantastic merit badge that will teach them and hopefully get them excited about the world of robotics. I'm glad I have the chance to teach it. Hopefully, they'll be a bit more prepared this year. Bringing this back to the thoughts from Guy Kawasaki, he mentioned that the purpose of a business is make a meaning. My hope is that both Tim's Wood Bowls and MINDS-i is a part of making that meaning. 

Tim's Tips and Tricks for Elite Dangerous

Ships, and where to buy them:

http://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/ships/

Ship Outfitting/Building:

https://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_clipper/4pktkFflodpskf4157l27270400080i4k5n2b6l0202002h.AwRj4yrI.Aw18aQ==?bn=Clipper%20A

Thrudds Trading Tool:

http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk/

Systems information:

https://eddb.io/

Route Planning:

http://ed-td.space/

Money Making guide:

1.       Go to the system: Kremainn, and dock at the station: Wholer Terminal.

2.       Hunt for bounties in the “Resource Extraction Site” or RES, This is found in the one of the Ringed planets closest to the station.

a.       Stay close to the security forces as they will help you take down enemies.

b.      When you are low on hit points or want to cash in the bounties head back to the station.

c.       Feel free to upgrade modules and even buy better ships as you earn more credits.

d.      The goal is to gain over 2 to 4 million credits.

3.       Buy and Upgrade the Type 6 Transporter following this guide.

a.       Feel free to modify as needed, you may want shields, a bigger fuel scoop, hard points, or utilities.

b.      If you just wanted to get into basic trading, only 2 million is needed. Search for a system using the Thrudds trading Tool and trade.

c.       You can earn 1 to 2 million per hour doing basic trade missions.

4.       For those long distance missions, head to CEOS and SOTHIS.

a.       It’s around 500ly so prepare for long range. It’s about a 20 jump trip so 20 minutes in travel time.

b.      Run “Boom Data Missions” between the two system to increase your reputation.

c.       When you have enough reputation, missions will pop up giving you around 1 million apiece, take as many as you can and trade between populated space and CEOS/SOTHIS.

d.      You can earn 5 to 10 million per hour doing these missions. (Possibly up to 50 million if you have an anaconda.)

Good luck! This concludes my money making guide.

CMDR TIM MYRRHS

Learning to Fly

"I don't always do something stupid, but when I do I make sure to post it on the internet so everyone can laugh with me." 

My most recent goal has been to build a FPV Racing Quadcopter as folows:

FPV Racing Quadcopter

My intent with this project is to develop and build a 250mm FPV Racing Quad copter. I’ll put resources and links as I find them available. Initial challenges with the MINDS-i system will be making the frame small and lightweight enough for 5-6in propellers to provide ample thrust to weight ratio.   

 QAV250 Mini FPV Quad copter Review by Tested

As you can tell my original design was to use the MINDS-i pieces. The main problem is plastic flex, will the frame bend too much? With a little inspiration from Tested I had a good idea of what I needed to do. So I went and built this:

Here it is! I used the colored beams to mimic the flight lights on modern aircraft. (I didn't have any green beams, so I used blue.) Evenually, I'd like to use some LED's but let's just get this thing tuned and flying first. The reason for this color coordination is so that I will always know which way my quad is facing. On this I'm using the 10x4.7 props, so it's actually pretty overpowered for a small copter. It's about 12in wide and long so it is much bigger than the 250mm class quad but it's a good place to start. 

I'm using the same top and bottom plates as the MINDS-i kit uses but the plates are mixmatched as to make it as sort as possible. One bottom plate and one top plate is used on the topside as shown, and mirrored on the bottom. This allowed me to remove a few spaces in the overall length. This is using the APM board with external GPS and it has a 4 cell 2250mAh battery. I'm using the other stock 1100 KV motors and  30 amp esc's on the MINDS-i kit. Testing this showed that it was completely overpowered, because of the smaller frame. Here are a few notes from my initial tunning:

PID TUNING - 12/14/15

Unsuccessful attempts at PID Tuning the quad. Changing multiple values appears to not make any effects. In most cases it flies normally until the error ramps up, (about 5 to 10 secs), the quad will continue to shake back and forth uncontrollably. Changing the D seems to make the most difference controlling how fast the quad shakes the higher the value the faster.  (D= 0.001 to 0.008. D=0.004 seems to be the best) However, no setting appears to work. We also tried the Auto Tune function but it would deactivate the moment it was armed.

Thoughts?

I may need to set the P value below 0.08.

I would like to try auto tune again, see if it will work.

The flex in the frame may be causing it to shake. 

After doing a little bit of research on these sites I returned to tuning the next day.

Helpful Links:

http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/ac_rollpitchtuning/

http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/arducopter-tuning-guide

http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/tuning/

12/15/15

The tuning seems to be going better. I think I can negate the up and down wobble from the string and focus on getting the “shakes” out. It seems to almost be flyable.

From DIYDrones I’ve found the following excerpt helpful. Starting with D.

“I’ve found the quickest way to tune the arducopter is to start with rate_D, (but you simply can’t do this unless you can hold your beast in hand or in a jig as the copter won’t fly without any rate_P or I) so a more universal way to start, and actually a more informative way is to start with rate_P.

STEP TWO – Tuning rate_D

1.       You have found a nice rate_P value (or so you think), so leave that fixed for now. For example 0.110

2.       Set a range of rate_D from 0.000 to 0.025.

3.       Throttle up in hand with rate_D at 0.000, things should be as you left them at the end of step one.

4.       Now start turning up rate_D, again move the sticks, shake the beast about, you will notice that at a fairly precise point you start to see very fast oscillations. This is your maximum rate_D, I’d set it just under where you can induce these fast oscillations by moving the sticks fast of shaking a leg.

5.       Now you can go back to rate_P and tune that again, you should be able to increase it considerably!!! So to step three.

NOTE: once you have found your rate_D you can try something interesting - you will have to hold onto your bird for this obviously. Set rate_P to zero, then crank up your rate_D as you just have. You will discover that these fast oscillations occur at pretty much the same level of rate_D, no matter what you have set rate_P to. This is why I think it’s more than possible to start tuning rate_D then move on to P. But that’s a shortcut, and this is not what this guide is all about.”

What I did:

Tuned D to 0.003

Tuned P to 0.087

After a few test flights, it wasn't working at all, it would either not arm at all or when did it was very under-powered. To fix the problem I went back and redid all of the calibration and parameters. 

12/16/15

 Yesterday: After resetting all of the parameters, re installing the firmware and re calibrating the quad it flew very nice. I was able to fly it most of the day.

Originally the error were that it would not get off of the ground, like the throttle was limited. It also had the problem of it arming and then disarming.

After I got it flying I took it out several times. There were several crashes. It would fly well for about five to seven minutes but then it would twist and fall out of the sky. It think it has something to do with the low voltage failsafe not being set correctly but it’s hard to tell.

The PID seems to be set fairly well. Its flight is very smooth. It seems to wander a bit and it does tend to shake a little in the wind, but it is able to maintain flight and I feel like I have very good control over the air craft. I think I’m done tuning the PID for now. I can focus on fixing the failsafe. 

I was able to fly it for most of the day on the 15th and the 16th testing how it flew and handled. However that night I took it home to practice flying it a little more and disaster struck. I write about my experience the next day:

12/17/15

Well I lost it. It last saw it floating off in the distance just to the north east of my house. I searched hours for it but no luck. Time to think about GPS Tracking.

To add a little bit more to the entry, I remember it flying it in circles, trying to get used to using the yaw in different directions. Flying it towards me and away from me. All the time it was in stabilize mode or in altitude mode. After flying a flew loops it slowly got higher and higher. I tried to bring it lower but there were several trees I had to avoid. At one point it started to drift and because I was not sure which way was the front when I went to correct it's course it drifted in the wrong direction until it was out of sight and drifted behind a tree. At that point I went to run to catch up to it and by the time I got there it had either drifted far from that location or crashed. I searched for hours after that but was unable to find it.

I continued to search for the quad in the days to follow. Talking to many neighbors and passing out my business cards and contact information to anyone I could talk to. I even mapped out a search area and highlighted the area I visited as well as the red areas where I could not get to, I then went and checked all the red areas the next day, but with no luck. That weekend there was some good snowfall so wherever it went was likely under snow, I continued to search through the weekend with no luck.

Since then I've started to practice more on the flight simulator Phoenix R/C version 5.5.i. I've also moved to a smaller model. This little micro quad I got for Christmas. Thank you Merrill and Rachel!

Between the simulator and this micro quad I've tried to fly every single day since the accident. I've also taken some tips from Flite Test to start in Acrobatic mode, or Agile mode. I've started that on the flight simulator and seems much more manageable now. Since then I've been following these tips in this video to be helpful. 

That's my story, in the days to follow I've continued to practice flying. I've also thought about what my new quad is going to look like and laid out an initial design. I try to update this post regularly so I can keep track of my progress and research. 

My newest project:

Levi came up with this design. After flying it around and testing it for a few weeks he'd like to make a few changes and I'd like to build a new quad so with that extra carbon fiber sheet we'll have to make another quad like this. 

The future design will have shorter stand off's so the quad height will be lower. Levi noticed that there was plenty of space in the middle so we'd like to chop off another 0.4 in off the height. We'll have to make a few custom length stand off's instead of using the MINDS-i threaded collars but that should be simple enough. Another change is to cut out as much weight as possible while still maintaining the strength. 

I'll need to get a few things to complete this quad, namely:

The multiwii flip32+ Deluxe v5.0

The Power Pack E from Flite Test.

Drones you won't believe exist.

This looks like my favorite FPV racer I've found. Immersion RC Vortex 250. 

A more interesting ideas: Top 5 Drones you should have.

5. Carbon Flyer

4. Ghost

3. C-MI

2. CyPhy Lvl 1

1. Plexidrone


Also I found this Tile Bluetooth Tracker! 

I've signed up for two new forums to help start a local RC group:

Flitetest forums

RCgroups Forums

Looking at some more quads today I found the TBS Discovery Pro Gimbal Frame, this is from Team Black Sheep.

This was designed for amateur and pro aerial videographers, the key feature to this is that it has a fully stabilized camera gimbal.

A great starting FPV wing similar to the Teksumo is the TBS Caipirinha. Much more expensive. The reason behind it  seems to be a 35 minute flight time with a range of 10km. Fully decked out it's $351.60.