SimplyHome Product Designer Michael Doornbos Featured in Wired For His Space Exploration Project
FireFly Controller Board Simplifies Rocket Science
- By Tim Bailey
- Email Author June 20, 2012
Categories: Electronic Geek, Projects and Activities, Science and Education,Toys and Technology
Recently, my friend Mike Doornbos from Evadot got together with the small-satellite crew down at the non-profit Kentucky Space to try to fix an annoying problem. (Yes, people really do get together to solve annoying problems with their satellites!) They wanted a standard “mission command” board that could serve as the basis for the brains, power and voice for different space applications without having to make it from scratch every time. They liked their solution so much, they decided to share!
“We’re making the FireFly controller boards because it seems like a lot of projects repeat the same ten steps just to get started. If you’re going to launch a high altitude balloon with a camera on it (to take pictures of the curvature of the earth), build some remote sensing equipment, teach a class, or even launch a satellite you need the same basic components,” says Mike Doornbos. “This system gets you right to ‘step 10′ in your project. Steps 1 through 9 are already done! The FireFly is designed to provide everything you need to get started including:
- A small computer with an easy to use programming interface (emphasis on easy).
- Battery power with charging circuits.
- Long range communications.
- The ability to use existing add on hardware.
- Some software you can borrow, reuse, and share.
- A place to talk about what your building to get help."