Camera mount for EasyStar

Made a camera mount for EasyStar out of scrap coro.

This is for my sony cybershot WX1 camera. Many more improvements are pending, like a velcro strap and a servo for the trigger. Made a test run today. every thing went fine but my stock easystar was strugling with the extra weight. but thats ok as i am upgrading to a brushless this week.
Watch in HD on Youtube

Finally got my first electric flying

This week end I had the plane ready to fly, all fixed up, vertical stab removed and re-glued. Did some test glides in the bushes but it kept banking to the right. Any ways I decided to give it a try and crashed the same way I did last week end. Then I fixed a coin under the left wing and the plane took off without any input. However the flight was a struggle as I the plane was nose heavy and I had an exponential on the elevator. I somehow managed to avoid the huge pancard club name boards. It was so windy that even on full throttle the plane kept drifting towards other side of the hill. But I managed to crash land it on my side of the hill. The plane was later recovered from the hill and flown till the Tx battery was drained out.

New plane, new crash

Due to lots of crashes and other dangers and inconveniences involving heavy engine powered planes, I have finally decided to try my hand in electric powered planes. For the first plane I decided to start with a very popular German model Multiplex EasyStar. This is the most durable plane available in the world. Got the electronics and battery from a hobby store in Chennai.
Went for the maiden flight last Sunday at Pancard Club, Pune. The weather was good but very windy. Having no experience of how electric plane react in wind I went ahead for the maiden and the results were not good. I was not able to get the plane flying. Actually electric planes have very less power and thus are made very light and therefor difficult to fly in windy conditions. Any ways here is the video.
Camera works, sound effects and commentary by my lovely wife Sonam.

The damage:
Tail boom cracked.
Motor mount separated from fuse.
Nose cracked at two places and bent.
As the damage is only to the body, it is easily repairable. Hope to get it flying next weekend.

Update column with incrementing number

Today a friend of mine was stunned by an update statement I wrote which updated a column by incrementing values. Actually it’s a very simple update statement construct but according to my friend, not many people know about.
Here is an example statement used to update a column with incrementing number.

DECLARE @num AS INT
SET @num = 1

UPDATE Employee SET @num = counter = @num + 1

If you want to use the incrementing number to perform some operation on the column to be updated then you can use this technique. Below is couple of update statements to get your ideas ticking.

UPDATE Student SET
	Marks = Marks + @num,
	@num = @num + 1;

UPDATE Employee SET 
	EmpCode = 'EM' + CAST(@num AS VARCHAR(8)),
	@num = @num + 1;

Moon and Venus

Last night I took a picture of the Moon with Venus just above the horizon. The picture has lots of noise and is in no way a good capture of the Moon. But considering the fact that it was taken with point and shoot camera, I think it’s wonderful that i was able to capture Venus in this image.

Picture of Moon and Venus taken with a point and shoot camera.