After college I wanted to get back into aircraft design. For the first year I was able to use tools I created at WPI with MATLAB. However, after a year, my MATLAB subscription expired. I needed an alternative! So: I started to use Python. I found Python to be a quick, light weight, and flexible tool to suit my needs.
After college I wanted to get back into aircraft design. For the first year I was able to use tools I created at WPI with MATLAB. However, after a year, my MATLAB subscription expired. I needed an alternative! So: I started to use Python. I found Python to be a quick, light weight, and flexible tool to suit my needs. For this project I needed a tool to do several calculations:
Max L/D speed
Calculate Time of Flight based off battery parameters
Determine the Static Stability Margin
Intermediate and tedious calculations
For the first iteration of the Aircraft Design Tool I converted my MATLAB code from senior year at WPI to a python script. I used two different scripts for the tool. One script had the user input values and called functions to be ran. The second script was where all the definitions for the function calls were described. I had to learn how to pass variables not stored in the same workspace. I also had to learn NumPi.
Based off the first iteration, I created a GUI using the TKinter package. This allowed me to create a user interface, accept user input, allow only a specific function to be called, and give the user outputs in the same window. I also made it so a user can input default values in the script to save time when varying only one parameter. Another useful tool was deleting all the generated plots at once.
To compare how varying the cord effected the velocity of the max L/D velocity
To find the thrust needed at the max L/D velocity
During the start of the pandemic I wanted to learn Python. I also liked using Amazon's Alexa, but was worried about privacy concerns. Inspired from the Star Trek 'Computer', I started working on my own personal assistant. The script ran in a loop, waiting for a voice command that met several criteria. Basically it was a bunch of else-if statements.
The Personal Assistant allowed me to look up the weather and top news stories. I also created a command where I could get the commute time to my office. Of course, like any good captain, I could declare red alert. That triggered the 'battle station' sound to be played from Star Trek, Voyager.