2010 IOM Nordic Champs

Update2: youtube-videos

Update: final results: http://www.rc-purjehdus.net/2010/09/2010-iom-nordic-championships-%E2%80%93-day-2/

Only 9 skippers (6 FIN, 3 SWE) in this years IOM Nordic Championships, held at NJK Björkholmen, Helsinki.

There are more pictures in picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/anders.e.e.wallin/2010IOMNordicChampionships#

Preliminary results from day 1: http://www.rc-purjehdus.net/2010/09/2010-iom-nordic-championships-day-1/

I have some incredibly shaky video material shot with the 500D and 70-200 lens which I may or may not upload to youtube later.

Model Expo Sunday

Some random pics from Sunday at the 2010 Helsinki Model Expo.

The two 1:10RC scale yachts look nice, but must take an enormous amount of time to build, and are 140cm long and weigh 10kg (like a 1970-80s Marblehead?). All of which contrasts quite strongly with the MicroMagic, where presumably some of the better sailing this season will take place. We had one PIKANTO hull and some components on display, but we really don't have a handle on producing these hulls or parts at a rate or cost that would make it possible to sell or market them (yet?).

Some lathes, and a miniature Proxxon machine-park, on display. But nothing running EMC2 or the size/speed/awasomeness that would have raised my interest further. If I finish the lathe this summer I think something like a hexapod must be next on the todo-list...

1090 euros (about 1450 USD!) seems a bit steep for a MakerBot CupCake kit, which seems to cost about 750-950 USD elsewhere (googling gets me here or here or review-here). Unfortunately this kind of pricing is quite common with companies that import stuff. I won't miss these companies when they go out of business because everyone (sane) orders directly from Germany/USA/China/etc.

In a normal BLDC motor the windings are stationary on the outside, and a permanent-magnet rotor in the middle rotates. On outrunners this is reversed: the windings are stationary in the middle, and a rotor with permanent magnets is on the outside. The pictures here and here show a DIY electric motor I had not seen before. Both the windings and the permanent magnets rotate, in opposite directions. They are coupled to two propellers which rotate in opposite directions, and it apparently works quite well!

Model Expo 2010 setup

It's time for this years Model Expo in the Helsinki convention center. We set up some boats yesterday and will have Micro Magic, IOM, 5.5mrc, and as a new thing for this year 1:10RC-boats on display. The big 1:10 boats (behind the table against the wall) are built by a local enthusiast fairly accurately to scale, length ca 140cm, weight 10kg, with pretty big/sturdy fittings by modern racing radiosailing-standards.

MicroMagic sailing in the pool will be the main radio-sailing attraction as usual.

Garmin 405cx aboard an IOM

race1-2

The 405cx gps-watch is small and light enough to just tape to the aft-deck of an IOM. Today's event in Tampere had 12 races but I missed a few due to electrical problems. Races 1 and 2 above, and races 7-12 below. It's funny how google-maps and google-earth show permanent winter and ice in Tampere 🙂

race7-12

The raw-data (tampere_gpsdata.zip) is available in TCX format as well as Google-earth KML format from the garmin connect website.

Anyone have any software or matlab code to extract the instantaneous speed from this data and plot it? Might be useful for further CFD investigations or VPP-programs. Mostly light and shifting no1 rig the whole day. It will be interesting to compare with no2 and no3 rig in a real breeze.

Are there even smaller and lighter GPS-dataloggers? How long before we can have a GPS on every boat and watch playback of the race afterwards at home?

2009 FIN IOM Ranking 5

Some pictures from the first day:

And some videos from the second day: (shot with an N95, sorry for the quality...)

Results here.

Does anyone have one of the new Canon or Nikon DSLRs which can record video? With a super-zoom (something like 18-200 mm), is it any good for recording video like this?