I really have to do this more regularly. Over the past month we have:

o Worked with Nic and others to figure-out that we will start with the DJI Phantom 3 Advanced as our UAS platform, and the RPLIDAR unit as a likely candidate for the LIDAR component. Both of these are in-house as of yesterday.

o Sorted funding for this year’s trip. Since we will be doing a combination of science and developing the field studies program we are drawing from a variety of funding sources. Stay tuned for our bake sale announcements 😉

o Developed the in-country calendar, started on the pre-trip calendar.

o Sorted all the in-country travel and lodging. This was no small feat, Kristin spent about 2 weeks working on all the details including determining the cargo volume and payload for an appropriate vehicle.

o Worked with Deeksha and Eamon on organizing, labeling, and curating our field data sets from Iceland2013, Iceland2014 and Nicaragua2014.

I am hoping to wade into Arduino <-> BLE <-> Android next, and then work with Nic on the UAS/LIDAR rig. The temperature probe, ambiance with altitude, and visualization interface should follow soon after.