Rocket Lander

Inspiration

SpaceX autonomous landing.

What it does

Takes visual input of land-pad and lets user know where the rocket needs to be adjusted, what direction to angle the camera/rocket to properly land.

How we built it

It was modeled in Python using OpenCV and attempted translation to C++ code also with the use of OpenCV. We retrieved visual input to find the landing pad using a webcam. Although we attempted to used C++ to model the project, it did not make it to the final product.

Challenges we ran into

Getting OpenCV and CMake to work. Also some other minor technical difficulties with the IDEs and code editors to work compile C++ code and work with Github. Additionally this is all of our first hackathon and are still learning to apply our code. In the end we decided to use Python.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Getting a basic understand of and processing visual input. Setting up and learning how to use OpenCV.

What we learned

Understood the concept of boiler-plate code and recognizing that not everything needs to be built from scratch. We learned how to process visual input through a webcam.

What's next for Rocket Lander

Keep improving it and use it in a rocket simulator. Be able to tell from the scale of the picture the distance of the landing pad from the camera/rocket. Also be able to positionally orient itself onto the land-pad. We will also improve our skills to give a more variety of instructions to the program and to stream the feed the program onto a domain.