Echinacea Field Log

KAP: KAP has not gone so well this summer. We went out to Staffenson last week, in an attempt to at least get a pretty picture to show for our troubles. The idea was also to get before/after photos of the liatris (liatrises? liatri?) blooming. We set up a 10m x 10m square near the boundary between East and West. Alas, due to unstable winds and our failure to bring more than one memory card, we weren't able to take too many pics. And, of those we did take, we only had one (ONE!) with three groundmarkers included and none (NONE!) with all four groundmarkers.

Today we went out again and, despite promising wind predictions, failed to get the camera up.

Team Bee: Amy is analyzing data

Team Video: Due to an encouraging article on BBC about time travel, Colin has decided to wait for this invention rather than watch the 1000 hours right now. He plans on sending back his future self to do the grunt work. Thus, when all video is reviewed, we will know that time travel has been perfected.

Team FA: Leaves and heads, done.

Demography: Going well. Gaining in speed and efficiency. However, many, many sites are left to do. Getting nervous about the end of the summer coming so soon.

Common Garden: FINISHED! Well, just harvesting left.

Hegg Lake: Rechecks c. 1/3 done

Rachel's Sites: Almost done!

Posted by Julie Nicol at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How are we figuring out what goes where? In most KAP applications, the camera is pointed at the horizon, or slightly towards the ground from the horizon. It's pretty easy to get landmarks this way (trees, buildings, roads, stuff like that). Looking at the ground, however, it's not so easy. How do you get good landmarks in a sea of green?

Simple. Ground markers.

Continue reading "Ground markers" »

Posted by Josh Drizin at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a rundown of our equipment and various settings that we're using.

Kites:
Sutton Flowform 16
G-kites Dopero
Peter Lynn Pilot 50

Continue reading "KAP Equipment" »

Posted by Josh Drizin at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was Friday the 13th, the kind of day the superstitious worry about and the kind that I figure is just another day. The wind was pretty good, enough to pick up our Flowform 16 kite with our camera rig. We went out to North by Northwest of Landfill and set out our ground markers [images when our internet gets back up]. With a pretty good wind from the west, we got the kite up and the camera rig above the roadside population. We took two runs along the road, once south and once north (higher and lower). Overall, it was a good run.

Until...

Continue reading "Team KAP update" »

Posted by Josh Drizin at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Overall, today went pretty well. We managed to get the camera up on the small kite.

The wind gave us a few problems, though. The camera came down a few times and we had to run to grab it.

The big kite, however, had issues. After letting it out around 80 meters, the kite took a dive to the right... into a building. WHAM. This isn't a sound you want to hear. A few tears on the front, but not horrible. The problem came when Stuart was moving the kite. A gust of wind caught the kite around him. SNAP. Another bad sound. The carbon-fiber sticks were fine; an aluminum connector was not.

Posted by Josh Drizin at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here are some key resources:

Kensington general forecast and 48-hour surface wind forecast (from NWS in Minneapolis).

Hoffman general forecast and 48-hour surface wind forecast (from NWS in Grand Forks).

Current conditions at nearby weather stations.

Posted by Julie Nicol at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Turns out, our camera wasn't saving settings properly. That's lame. I got it to work and have some slightly modified settings from Julie's post. Here's the rundown.

Continue reading "More KAP goodness" »

Posted by Josh Drizin at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This afternoon for work, a kite was flown. Now, this was not just any kite. This kite had a name that involved "16", as that presumably is roughly the square footage of this beast. Being a gusty afternoon (Rachel clocked the wind speeds at anywhere from 7 to 27 mph). Having trouble getting the kite up by just letting the gusts grab it, I went to the house to grab a few more pairs of gloves (didn't want rope burn). As I returned, Rachel and Julie figured out the trick to get the kite up: run with it.

Continue reading "Go fly a kite!" »

Posted by Josh Drizin at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Julie of the RAJ Mahal here. This is my first blog entry, ever. But I am excited to spend Saturday night flogging.

I'm also very excited to be involved in the KAP project this summer. As Stuart has noted, "aerial photography from
kites is one of the oldest forms of remote sensing of the earth's surface."

Stuart constructed the rig:
Brooxes Basic KAP Kit purchased from http://www.brooxes.com/newsite/BBKK/index.html

We attached the camera, a Canon Powershot S70, and sent it up on a test run on our Flow Form 16 x 4ft, which is suitable for winds of 8-25 mph, but (as we found) becomes increasingly difficult past 15mph.

Our other kite is a G-Kites Dopero, good for 5-12mph winds. It's a bit smaller (6ft by 10ft).

Everything went fairly smoothly until we returned and were frustratingly foiled by technology. We shot the images in RAW format (necessary for the fine scale images we hope to produce) which are supposed to be accompanied by a JPEG thumbnail. Turns out we don't have the software to open and work with these RAW files and we couldn't find the JPEG files anywhere! We have a couple promising leads on programs to manipulate the RAW files - hopefully Josh, our resident techie (would you prefer tech guru? I just don't like to encourage technology. We don't mix, technology and I), will help us overcome this obstacle.

So, as of yet, we don't *really* know how our test run went. The lens had retracted back into the body of the camera both times we sent it up, but based on the number of files we uploaded, it does not appear that it stopped shooting images. Don't know what's up with that. I find it a little troublesome. I don't like when gadgets do mysterious things that defy control.

Important notes:
*Wear gloves
*Stay away from trees
*Electrical tape is great for affixing the LED over the camera's remote sensor - it's opaque, which is good because the system doesn't work as well in direct sunlight. And it's easy to remove and re-attach.
*Make sure to use the fuzzy tail - increases stability
*Pin the rig on as close to the kite body as feasible/practical (not *too* close)
*When bringing down the kite, hold the wheel vertical as you roll in the line. If you hold it horizontally, the line twists as you roll is, which is bad for storage
*When bringing the kite down, it works for one person (in gloves!) to pull the line down, hand over hand. The other person should stand behind with the wheel to roll in the line. Try to keep up so that the line doesn't get dirty (which, as climbers know, severely shortens the lifespan of a rope)
*A second person is necessary for assisting in bringing the kite/rig down, especially in high winds
*A second (and ideally third) person is necessary for determining exactly where the rig is flying. It's hard to tell where it is (what it is taking pictures of) without people on either side (say, 50m away) for rough triangulation.
*Holding the kite can be tiresome, especially in high winds. Don't be shy about taking turns.

Suggestion:
Build a kite-flying contraption. I am imagining something with handles like a rolling pin (so that you can roll and unroll smoothly, without twisting the line) and some sort of a clamp to hold the line in place once the kite has reached cruising altitude. I don't think it should be something that affixes to the ground because you need to be able to walk around (in an attempt to coax the kite into a transect). I don't fish - how do fishing poles work? I presume they have some sort of locking mechanism - perhaps something we could mimic on a larger/cruder scale?

Here are some links (from Stuart):
http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/kaptoc.html
lots of info and links to good Q&As and safety stuff

http://www.brooxes.com/newsite/index.html
great resource

http://www.gentles.info/KAP/Index_KAP.html
looks good

http://scotthaefner.com/kap/gallery/
looks good

http://www.kaper.us/Links/index.php#research
good links here!

blog: http://www.bults.net/kapnet/index.php

blog: http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap2/php/wind/

http://becotus.chez-alice.fr/aerophoto/anglais/e&aerophoto.htm
looks good

http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap2/php/wind/discuss/
old discussion

http://www.tucit.com/index.html

http://www.jonesairfoils.com/html/index.html

e-resources: http://www.kaper.us/

Abers at Emporia State U
http://www.geospectra.net/kite/kaphome.htm
http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/abersusa.htm
http://www.emporia.edu/kas/trans104/aber1/aber1.htm
http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/aberjame.htm

science: http://www.bults.net/kapnet/links/Scientific_use/

knots: http://www.geospectra.net/kite/knots/knots.htm#intro

http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/equip/equip.html
comprehensive, but old

http://www.schmidts-pit.de/kap/technik/rig1/index.html
info on rigs

Posted by Julie Nicol at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)