Don't Do Anything Stupid

My usual launching point for AMOS testing is at the entrance to Woolastook Park, where there is a small parking area. Perhaps the campground is closed because of COVID-19, because the road leading into the park has been blocked this year with a chain, and large stop signs with an additional warning on printed sheets of paper stuck to the signs: !WARNING DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID!

Is the extra printed sign more successful at preventing stupidity (i.e. driving a vehicle around the barricade) than just  the STOP signs and chain by themselves? Or maybe it has the opposite effect, and incites rash behaviour? (I wasn't gonna do anything stupid, but now that you mention it, maybe I will!)

A lot of the things that I have tried for AMOS seem a bit stupid or absurd in retrospect, and probably would not have been tried by someone with more knowledge or experience with robotics or boats. Our garage is becoming a collection of failed equipment: broken solar panels, strange wooden structures, kayak beer cooler full of holes, kitchen strainers with the handles sawed off, numerous 3D print fails, and a slew of circuit boards and electronics that are either damaged or no longer relevant. 

Yesterday, I thought I had lost the AirProp module, as the base of it came unglued during a test, the propeller snapped off, and the module fell into the water, hanging by its electrical wires to a depth of about a foot. At the time, I was sitting in the kayak on shore, writing some code and waiting for AMOS to arrive. Eventually I realized that AMOS was no longer approaching, so I stashed the laptop and paddled out to investigate. Stupid! (Or maybe lazy?) Should have bolted the base down, and not relied on epoxy (Gorilla Glue I think) to hold it down. It had held well for almost a year, but probably all the hot weather this month loosened the bond (it can get up to about 50 °C inside the electronics boxes). The plan was to have AMOS spell out something in the water, but I guess that will have to wait for another day:

I figured the AirProp was dead for sure, so I ordered some replacement components from Amazon, After drying out the AirProp module in the hot sun for a few hours though, I tested it out and it actually worked fine! This evening I secured the base of the AirProp properly with a couple of bolts to the electronics box. 

So if there is a moral to this blog post, it would be something like: try not to do anything stupid, but don't worry about making mistakes while learning. Sometimes it all works out OK in spite of your mistakes, and sometimes it doesn't. 😀