Sponsor Ariadne¶
Ariadne is an independent research project by an electrical engineering student. The software side is done to a standard you can check: derivations for every gain, 115 simulator tests, a C++ planner that matches the simulator bit for bit, and Monte Carlo studies with confidence intervals. What it needs now is hardware, and that is where you come in.
What your support builds¶
The milestones are on the roadmap; the hardware is specified in the Mk II proposal, where the design studies justify each item.
25 USD
Sensors¶
Eight IR emitter and phototransistor pairs with spares: the 1 kHz wall sensing that the sensor study asks for.
60 USD
Inertial measurement¶
Two ICM-42688-P IMUs (one spare). Gyro scale and drift are what decide whether diagonal runs are reliable.
120 USD
The board¶
Fabrication and assembly of five 4-layer Mk II boards: the PCB that becomes the chassis.
150 USD
A maze to drive in¶
A 6 × 6 practice section with regulation 180 mm cells and 12 mm walls: where every flight log comes from.
200 to 400 USD
Motors¶
A matched pair of motors with encoders; coreless motors at the top of the range for the performance build.
Smaller amounts help too: every part on the list is a few dollars, and the ledger shows where each contribution went.
Kinds of support¶
- PCB fabrication and assembly: board houses that run student and open-hardware sponsorship programmes are the ideal partner for M4.
- Components: IMUs, IR parts, motors, connectors; distributor credit works too.
- Equipment time: an oscilloscope and a bench supply for bring-up.
- Funding: anything from one sensor to the whole roadmap.
- Mentoring and review: engineers who have built micromice, motor drives or estimators are very welcome to review the design.
What sponsors get¶
- Your logo or name on this website and in the README, and for hardware sponsors on the Mk II silkscreen.
- Credit in every build log, flight-log release and the final technical write-up.
- A technical article about the part of the project you supported (for example a fabrication review of the boards), for your blog or community.
- Early access to results and data.
Transparency¶
Contributions and spending are recorded in SPONSORS.md: what came in, what was bought, and which milestone it served. Nothing is hidden behind the build: the boards, the logs and the comparisons with simulation are published as they happen, including the runs that fail.
Get in touch¶
Open a sponsorship issue (it can be short), or use the contact details on the author's GitHub profile if you would rather talk privately first.