In defense of a righteous war

War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing? I’m not so sure.

There are times when we do not seek conflict, but we are faced with it nonetheless. This is one of those times. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, beginning on February 24, is deeply tragic. This needless aggression threatens to upend the relative peace, hard-won, that Europe has enjoyed for nearly eighty years.

War and peace

Humans have known conflict since before civilization began; it is the nature of people to vie with each other for dominance and respect. The lord in his castle espies a fine piece of land and thinks, “wouldn’t it be grand if that were mine? Indeed it ought to be. Why, I have documents here that prove it is mine by right. Let whoever disagrees defeat me in battle, and the winner take the prize.”

In the wake of the Second World War, Europe took stock of a long, repetitively bloody history, and thought, “no more. We don’t need to do things this way.” This was the beginning of an intentional European community built for the express purpose of preventing future war. The nations of the continent would bind themselves together so closely that war between them would be unthinkable.

And it worked. Since the 1950s, when the three European Communities were established, there has been no war between member states. This continues to be true with the successor organization, the European Union. Though they can disagree mightily, the countries of Europe have shown that, at least for a time, at least so far, they can work together in the name of peace.

These communities are not the only ones of their kind. Many organizations around the world exist for the furtherance of peace by relationship. The League of Nations was an early attempt, though it failed in a number of ways, and ceased to exist in the wake of WWII. The United Nations is the group that currently has the widest membership on Earth, counting nearly every widely recognized country among its ranks. For all the flaws of these organizations, we all seem to recognize the potential for peace through partnership and dialogue.

Democracy denied

But we do not all seem to agree on what merits breaching the peace. Mad King Vlad of Russia, who seeks to redraw the post-Cold War borders and resurrect the power of the Soviet Union, is trying to force Ukraine back beneath Russia’s wing by military means. The Ukrainians have enjoyed a taste of democracy since the Iron Curtain fell, and they do not want to go back. Their fledgling democracy is a work in progress, yes, with corruption still rampant. But it is young, and still learning to fly.

Moreover, the struggle to keep democracy is an integral part of the system. Democracy is meant to be flexible, and change over time, lest it grow brittle and crack. Democracy is meant to be messy, and argumentative, and at times disappointing, because it takes work to work together, and we don’t always get exactly what we want. We have to be willing to put in the effort—a great effort, no doubt—to understand one another, and to work for the good of all and the subjugation of none. It is a moral good to stay on the path to democracy; though they may stray, let us extend grace to those who always seek to resume the proper course.

Ukraine pursues this.

Russia does not.

Putin’s pretext

My instinct is to consider the reason which Putin has given for his aggressive posture, his claimed fear of NATO encroaching on Russia’s borders. I would like to believe that this reasoning is offered in good faith, and that this invasion of Ukraine is an unfortunate escalation, made more likely by individually justified moves by Moscow. I struggle to understand the evil that lives in the hearts of men, and I would prefer to view my fellow people as good.

Unfortunately, it is clear that Putin is lying.

In the weeks preceding the invasion, the United States publicly predicted what actions Russia would take, and to an astonishingly large extent, they were right. Russian troops did overstay their exercises in Belarus and the Black Sea. Russia did claim, contrary to evidence, that Ukraine was planning to attack the separatists in the Donbas. Russia did wait until shortly after the Olympics before invading.

This intelligence success shows a very different side of US intelligence than we have seen at times this century. This is not the Iraq War intelligence community, with its erroneous claims of WMDs. This time, Russia has proceeded largely as the intelligence community has foreseen. This severely undercuts any narrative that almost two hundred thousand Russian soldiers just happened to be out on exercises when suddenly “oh! Look! An ‘independent country’ on that other country’s soil! Gotta go protect them!” Utter lies.

When someone offers a bad faith justification for their actions, it is unhelpful to grant them the argument based on those alleged concerns. Perhaps Putin does have legitimate worries about NATO, but even if that’s true, it is not true that those fears precipitated his invasion. It is not true that the Ukrainian regime is filled with Nazis and fascists. It is not true that Ukraine has plans to commit a genocide against Russian speakers in the Donbas.

Waging this war

And so Russia has launched an unjust war against its neighbor, a country with democratic ambitions and a vision for itself as an independent, intentionally Westernizing nation. A nation that, though it may one day be, is not currently a NATO ally. What can we do about this? Should we go to war for Ukraine?

I would argue that, to some extent, we already have.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a hot war, with people on both sides actively trying to kill each other. I do not think we should proactively engage in hot war with Russia, because of the threat of nuclear escalation. I acknowledge that this possibility exists in any steps we might take, and this does scare me. I empathize with President Zelenskyy in his pleas for a no-fly zone, though I agree with President Biden and NATO leaders that we should be extremely wary of the consequences of such a step.

Economic warfare

But there are other ways to fight, and we are using them, and should continue. The economic sanctions that the West has levied against Russia, threatening to crash their economy and cut them off from outside markets, do not fire a single bullet at a Russian citizen, but they are weapons nonetheless. Property seizures against Russian oligarchs inflict pain on the ruling class surrounding Putin. The value of the ruble has plummeted, and Western companies are pulling out of the country. We are already aiming and landing blows on Russia, in an effort to force an end to the conflict. For what is any war but a campaign to force surrender and concessions? Our economic weapons of war are not fundamentally different from our kinetic weapons.

Sanctions are themselves an evolution from ancient siege warfare tactics, attempting to starve and weaken an enemy until they can no longer resist. From sieges to blockades, from blockades to sanctions, economic warfare has evolved over the centuries, mirroring the progress of more concrete weapons like ballistae, cannons, artillery, missiles. The goal of any war is to degrade the opponent’s will and means to continue fighting. With kinetic weapons, this means killing enemy combatants—and in acts now considered criminal, civilians—and damaging infrastructure and equipment. Our economic weapons work much more slowly, but the damage they can do to Russia is great.

I think Putin recognizes this. On February 27, in response to Western sanctions, he raised the alert level on Russia’s deterrent forces, including nuclear weapons. This is a dangerous escalation which brings the world closer to nuclear armageddon. I don’t want to suggest that this move is justified. But as a response to an attack, it does make some sense. We are already fighting Russia, and Putin threatens retaliation.

Fear of escalation

I have said that I do not want us to join the hot war because it is a step towards open conflict with Russia, a powerfully nuclear state. A step towards the use of nuclear weapons. A step towards the third world war we have feared since the end of the second, and maybe towards the end of the world. Yet I wish that we could join. For all the horrors of war, and with the acknowledgement that I have never truly experienced death, destruction, and mortal terror, I wish that we could fight. I wish that there were a path we could follow that would let us obey our principles and what we feel is right, while also being a winning strategy. Instead, to fight with Russia risks the end of civilization.

Defense of democracy

I feel that my moral core rebels against this view of reality. What Putin is doing is deeply wrong. What Putin is doing is evil. I do not want to accept a world where the prudent thing is to sit on the sidelines while a bully slaughters innocents. It may be that we live in such a world, but that does not mean that to do less than what we must not do is to do nothing. It matters that we speak against this naked aggression. It matters that much of the world has rallied in condemnation of the war. It gives me hope.

The last few years have shown us the fragility of democracy around the world. China has reabsorbed Hong Kong in violation of their treaty with the UK. Democratic systems in Turkey, Brazil, India, Hungary, and elsewhere have been weakened at the behest of their leaders. The culture war in the United States has been escalating for more than twenty years, posing an increasing threat to the stability of our Republic. There is a lot to worry about. Autocracy and democracy are at war, and democracy has lost ground.

But see how the war in Ukraine is being framed, as a front in this greater conflict.

The villain

In this corner, clocking in at over two decades in power, a true advocate of Russian imperialism and the power of might, is President Vladimir Putin. A former KGB agent, Putin has progressively weakened the freedoms of the Russian people, committed brutal assaults against the peoples of Chechnya and Syria, elevated his friends and sycophants to positions within Russia’s oligarchy, and poisoned political rivals. The elections that have kept him in power, while wearing a veneer of democracy, have in fact been increasingly foregone conclusions as Putin has outlawed opposition parties and murdered or imprisoned those who might challenge him. Putin stands for autocracy.

The hero

In this corner, elected in 2019 on a platform of anti-corruption and ending the ongoing conflict with Russia, is President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, former comedian and actor. Zelenskyy first came to the attention of myself and many other Americans when then-President Donald Trump pressured him to “do us a favor, though,” in his now infamous, laughably “perfect” call. Trump sought an investigation that he thought would damage his rival Joe Biden, who ultimately defeated him in the 2020 American presidential election. Trump threatened, and indeed attempted, to hold hostage $391 million of military aid to Ukraine unless Zelenskyy would announce an investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter.

This aid was intended to help Ukraine in their conflict with Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Trump’s pressure put Zelenskyy in a difficult position. Would he accede to Trump’s demands, corruptly announcing an unpredicated investigation into the orbit of a candidate in a foreign election, in order to secure the defense of his own country? Or would he stand up for his principles and reject this illegal scheme, risking the loss of needed military assets?

As we know, Zelenskyy stayed silent, attempting to thread the needle by not overtly provoking Trump while also failing to give in to him. I love him for that. And my admiration for the man has only grown as the war has raged in Ukraine. This hero refused a US offer to evacuate him, saying “I need ammunition, not a ride.” He has refused to abandon his people, unlike many, many leaders in conflicts around the world. His bravery in defense of his people and their democracy, and democracy writ large, has inspired and united the West and much of the world behind Ukraine. Zelenskyy stands for democracy.

And let’s not forget the people

Also in this corner are the Ukrainian people. For while Putin seems to be waging this war based solely on his own desires, the people of Ukraine stand alongside their president. Their stalwart defense in the face of such overwhelming might has been nothing short of amazing. Initial estimates put the capital in the hands of the Russian forces within days of the invasion; instead, two and a half weeks in, Kyiv is still under Ukrainian control. The entire country has mobilized to defend itself. The Ukrainian people want to govern themselves, and despite all the hardship and death Russia is inflicting, they are resolved to carry on. The Ukrainian people stand for democracy.

Why are we fighting?

The war in Ukraine is one front in the war to defend democratic systems the world over. Russia has invaded Ukraine because the latter has been slipping away from its former Soviet relationships in favor of closer ties with Europe and the West. With the 2014 Euromaidan protests and subsequent Revolution of Dignity, as well as by electing Zelenskyy himself, the Ukrainian people have expressed their desire to Westernize.

In contrast, Putin alone has decided that Ukraine belongs with, or perhaps to, Russia. In response to the 2014 revolution, Putin annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea and supported the separatist regions in the Donbas. This autocrat does not care what the people think, and seeks to impose his desired reality on his neighbor.

I love democracy. I really do. The notion that no one must be unheard, oppressed, or exploited is perhaps the finest thing I can imagine. And yes, I know that the US is not and has never been a perfect democracy. We began with slavery and only white male landowners allowed to vote. Though all adult citizens have the right to vote today, there are many obstacles to truly fair representation. Gerrymandering, laws which make voting more onerous, and regressive tax laws keep the poor down and threaten to further entrench minority rule.

But we are trying. Our democracy can and, I dearly hope, will continue to move towards a more perfect union. The Ukrainian people are our cousins in this struggle. They too wish to live in a better democracy, where their fate is determined by their own consensus, not the will of autocrats and oligarchs. We must do everything we can to help them.

Democracy is under threat around the world. The struggle for one democracy is part of the struggle for all of them. Let us not turn inward, ignoring those who share our ideals and plead with us for aid. Let us rise to this occasion. Let us show the world, and ourselves, what it means to be a democracy. What it means to be free.

Slava Ukraini, Glory to Ukraine.

Heroiam slava, Glory to the heroes.

May we soon see peace.

In my opinion, I’m probably wrong

I’ve previously written about the value I’ve found in writing. I want to tell people the things I’m thinking. I want to share myself with others. Part of that feeling, that impulse, is a confidence, spiced with a dash of hubris, that I have something valuable to say.

Do you, though?

Hmm, good question, me.

Thanks

I think that I do have a valuable perspective. I don’t think it’s unique, by any means, but there are elements of the way I look at the world which I think are really useful. I wish that other people thought more like me in those ways.

Sounds like you believe your way of thinking is better

Well, no, not really. I don’t think that I have the One True Insight into human nature, or that my opinions are always well founded and correct. I’m sure that parts of my current worldview are not quite right, and that some things I’m just plain wrong about. I’m never going to be right about everything. What’s more, I don’t even know which things I’m wrong about!

In fact, that’s a really important piece of my outlook on the world: I don’t know what I don’t know. Socrates said about—

Oh, now you’re comparing yourself to the father of Western philosophy?

Huh?

You’re about to say that Socrates thought the same way you do, right?

Well, there are elements in common, but—

Talk about hubris, huh?

That’s hardly—

Can you believe this guy?

Oh my god, I don’t think I’m Socrates. Can’t I cite someone famous without you saying that I think I’m basically them?

Well—

And don’t you think you’re just a tad overcommitted to the “inner dialogue” bit?

… Fine. Go ahead

Thank you. Now.

Socrates said about a conversation he had with someone:

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

Credit Wikipedia

Socrates isn’t saying that he’s fundamentally better than his conversation partner, though clearly he believes that his approach is better. Indeed, he appears reluctant to make any value judgments at all, or to claim that he knows anything valuable.

Now, Socrates was very much a philosopher, and so getting in the weeds about how and whether he knows what he knows (epistemology) is very much his thing. For myself, I think that stuff is really important, sure, but I don’t know too much about it. Not enough to discuss it expertly.

What I do know is that I often hear people present their opinions with a certainty that seems, well, unrealistic. If I might be wrong, where do I get off saying “No, this is definitely fact”?

.

.

Oh, right, I stopped using the inner dialogue conceit. You can talk now.

So I’m at your beck and call, am I?

Look, can you just ask the question I’m thinking of?

Fine, but we’re having words later. Ahem. “What, so people should never share their opinions?” Happy?

Uh, sure, thanks.

No, I don’t think that. People should be free, welcome, even encouraged to express their opinions. What bothers me is when someone is so sure that they’re right, that they think anyone who disagrees must have an ulterior motive. “Ploni must be dishonest,” thinks Almoni, “at least with themselves; otherwise, how could Ploni not arrive at the same conclusion as me?”

That doesn’t seem fair. Different people think differently, right? Disagreement doesn’t imply dishonesty

Yeah, that’s what I think. We all have different experiences informing who we are today. I’m a different Yossi today than I would be if I had gone to a different high school, or studied something else in college, or hadn’t moved to Seattle. I don’t know how those Yossis would differ from me, but I know that they would. They would be different people than I am.

I’m also a different person now than I was two years ago. Not all that different, but that Yossi hadn’t yet fallen in love, or had his heart broken, or gone through this absolute nightmare of a pandemic. He thought about the world somewhat differently than I do. That Yossi and I might disagree on a number of things. Without all of the things I’ve gone through, all the things I’ve seen and done, all the people I’ve met, the shape of who I am would be different.

Are you so good at changing your mind, then?

I try. I try really hard. And it’s not easy! There’s a great deal of comfort in knowing, believing, that the world is a certain way, and that you understand it. When things change, whether because your opinions change, or you learn new things, or the world around you changes, it’s disconcerting. It’s uncomfortable. It’s not a feeling I enjoy.

But it’s important. I don’t like being wrong, but I know that sometimes, I will be. So I need to be willing to ask, am I wrong about this? I need to be willing to change what I think, because I change, information changes, and sometimes, even reality changes. Look at the changing guidance around covid. Public health messaging about the pandemic has been really messy. Part—not all, certainly, but part—of the issue is that people aren’t used to authority saying “ignore what I told you yesterday, listen to me today.” And authority can be, has been, bad at telling people, “here’s what I know now, but this may change.”

I think that we would all benefit from a little less certainty. Many people who disagree with us would seem less malicious, less purposely obtuse. Disagreement feels less threatening when your worldview can accommodate changes. It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to change your mind.

Also try not to be a dick about it. That’s the real core of my worldview. And that’s hard, too.

Fail your way to success

First flight is in the books, folks! Here’s how it went:

Or, to summarize:

Not too well! Which is kind of what I expected, to be honest. I figured something would fail. In software engineering, we have a sense that, if you run your code after making a complicated change, and it “just works”, then something must be wrong. Easy success is too good to be true. You learn to expect failure along the way.

So what happened here?

Well, it seems like one of the rotors isn’t turning as fast as the others. I’m not certain where the issue is—it could be in the ESC, but it’s more likely that it’s a problem with the motor. I may have to replace it, though if I do that, I’ll just replace all of them. (The kit I bought was sketch.)

Nevertheless: this is a big deal! The drone is complete. Have a gander.

Dunnn duh-duh-daaaaah!

There it is! My first drone, complete (sans propellers) and I made it from scratch a crappy kit.

Does it look good? Not really! And that’s OK. I crashed it immediately, and that’s OK! Definite progress.

My next step is to try to tweak the PID controller—that is, the self-correcting feedback loop which helps smooth out the changes in a moving system (PID stands for proportional–integral–derivative). In this case, it makes sure that, as the motors spin faster and faster, the vehicle doesn’t suddenly shoot off into the sky as soon as its thrust beats gravity. I think. I’d explain more, buuuut I haven’t worked with this concept since robotics in college! I hope to have more knowledge on the subject for next time.

Toodles!

Glossary

ESC

• Electronic speed control

All about drone guts

Note: This post was largely written a few weeks ago. It has good stuff in it, but it’s not current anymore. So don’t be surprised when(/if) I’ve made an incredible amount of progress between now and my next post!

I’ve continued to work on soldering. I now have the power distribution board (PDB) connected to the battery and one of the electronic speed controls (ESC). An ESC powers, and regulates the signals to, one of the motors that spin the rotors. So this seems like a good time to talk about the main components in the drone design.

Power distribution board (PDB)

The power distribution board accepts power from the battery, and provides it to all the other components in the drone. Each of the motors will be hooked up to this board through its ESC.

Electronic speed control (ESC)

The electronic speed control gets power from the PDB and instructions from the flight controller, and in turn powers and controls the motor it’s connected to.

Motor

Even if you don’t know how electric motors work (which, by the way, totally reasonable. I only have some idea. I think it’s magnets?) you probably know what they are. This motor receives power and instructions from its ESC and spins a propeller.

I’ll get into this more another time, but we want two of the motors to spin clockwise, and two to spin counterclockwise. Surprisingly, it doesn’t matter which motor wire you connect to which ESC wire. It’ll work however you wire it up. If it spins the wrong way, you just swap two of the wires, and it reverses direction. Magic!

Flight controller (FC)

The flight controller is the (pretty dumb) brains of the drone. It gets control input from the receiver, and figures out what the inputs mean in terms of how the motors should spin. It translates those inputs into instructions which it sends to the ESCs.

The FC also contains a couple of important sensors. It has a gyroscope so the drone can tell when it turns, and an accelerometer so it can tell when it moves. It also supports a number of other components, like GPS, and a camera, but I’m not using those right now.

Interestingly, the flight controller can be powered straight off one of the ESCs, instead of being hooked up directly to the PDB. This is one of many, many surprises I’ve encountered.

Instructions not included

You know how, when you got a Lego set as a kid, if you misplaced the instructions, you were basically lost? Or if you lose the instructions to your new IKEA cabinet, you will have no idea how to put it together? I have had a fun* time attempting to answer the question “so how do I actually connect this stuff?”. The FC, as you might imagine, is a very important component. (I mean, they’re all important; there really aren’t any optional components in this thing. I’m not even bothering with a camera yet. But it is the coordinator, so you need to know how to connect component to this flight controller.)

So I was miffed that there were absolutely no instructions in the kit on how to hook up the flight controller. Or, well, any of the electronics.

It took me days (of working on other things) to realize that the baggie the FC came in had ‘CC3D’ printed on it. Once I searched that online, I did find a reasonably good manual. The internet is a wondrous place, eh? Even with the manual, it took me a while to figure out how to plug in the next piece, the radio receiver (Rx).

Receiver (Rx)

The receiver is a chip which listens for instructions radioed to it, which it picks up with its antenna. (Aside: electronics are incredible. Remote communication? What? Yes, I know we’ve had radio communication for a century. That doesn’t make it mundane. We did not evolve to find this stuff intuitive. There’s so much for us to wonder at in the universe 😄.) The receiver passes these instructions on to the FC.

Transmitter (Tx)

The Rx communicates with the transmitter (Tx), which is usually, and in this case, a handhold remote control. It’s similar to a remote control car controller… but way more so.

The first prototype of the rocketdrone will definitely be using a handheld controller. Having the vehicle land itself is one of those problems I am deferring into the far future. But it occurs to me that if and when I do implement the autonomous landing functionality, I don’t have to calculate it onboard the vehicle. I could instead run that code on a separate computer which transmits instructions to the drone. This means the vehicle won’t need the extra computer onboard.

H(oo/ec)king up the receiver

(hooking/hecking) Yes, I’m rather pleased with myself 😁

The receiver is supposed to connect to the flight controller, passing along the instructions from the transmitter in the remote control, telling the vehicle how it’s supposed to be moving. This particular receiver has eight places to connect wires. So, which ones am I supposed to use?

Power and negative are easy, they’re 5V IN and GND (5 volts in, ground). I’m actually not sure which of the other terminals I’m supposed to use 😟. I’m not too worried about messing those up, though. Crossing those wires will only make things not work, it shouldn’t break anything.

Uh, whoops

I did manage to break the receiver chip, though 🙃. I’m not totally sure how? My best guesses are that I somehow mixed up the wires at some point, or that one of the shorts I definitely caused (though they were outside the chip itself, which I’ve been told should be safe? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) was unsafe, and broke the chip. Or, most likely, when I was trying to power up the receiver chip to pair it with the transmitter, I connected the chip directly to the battery. Which proooobably overloaded it 🤦‍♀️.

At any rate, now when I plug the receiver to the flight controller in a way that I’m pretty sure is correct, part of the chip gets warm, which is promising, but neither of the LEDs light up, which is unpromising. I’m pretty sure the LEDs are supposed to light up when connected.

So I have more receiver chips on the way. Yay for breaking things!

My next post will probably be about my experience connecting and testing the components. Later!

Glossary

• PDB

  • Power distribution board

• ESC

  • Electronic speed control

• FC

  • Flight controller

• Rx

  • Radio receiver

• Tx

  • Radio transmitter

Masking my anger

As I write this, I'm on a plane home to see my family. Because of covid, I haven't seen any of them in almost two years, since my grandmother died shortly before the pandemic. This is the longest I've ever gone without seeing my parents. I can't wait to give them and my sisters unreasonably tight hugs, to spend time with them, and hopefully to explore improving our relationships (a topic for another blog post; or, perhaps, something I should keep private, not to be shouting my family's particular dysfunctions from the rooftops).

Family is really important to me. It's why I've put myself in this situation which utterly terrifies me. This is my first flight since the end of 2019. I know that folks have been traveling for a while now, and airplane transmission isn't that high. I'm vaccinated, and I'm wearing my mask carefully. But I find myself looking daggers at other passengers who sit unmasked for minutes on end, not just to eat or drink, but to talk to each other, or when heading to the bathroom.

I don't want to care what these other people are doing. I hate the urge I feel to police them. Most people don't like being told what to do; I know I don't. They could respond badly, or at a minimum, think ill of me, which I always have trouble not caring about.

But seeing them unmasked feels very scary. I feel like they're being cavalier with their safety, my safety, and the safety of everyone around us, and everyone we'll see in the next two to fourteen days. I want to yell at them, "put your fucking mask on, asshole!" I want to plead with them, "please wear the mask, it would make me feel a whole lot better." I've considered calling a flight attendant and asking her to ask them to mask up. But I haven't.

I don't think their behavior indicates that they're necessarily awful people, who don't care about the safety of others; nor that they're necessarily idiots, who don't know anything about this disease, and haven't been paying attention to information about it; nor that they're necessarily scofflaws who think the rules ought not apply to them. My knowledge of who they are and why they do what they do is basically nonexistent. I have a small, very grainy picture of who they are, far from enough to judge them.

We tend to look at the actions of others and assume that they're the sort of people who would do the things we see them doing. We often fail to consider them as whole people, with changing moods and fluctuating capacity to think through their actions. On the other hand, when we analyze our own actions, or the actions of someone we know well, we tend to allow a lot more leeway. We have a much more nuanced understanding of why they might be doing something we disapprove of, and we're more likely to be patient and forgiving with them.

I don't know these people. I desperately wish that they, and all the other people on the plane and in the airports, were wearing their masks more like I do. But they're not me. They don't have my experiences, they haven't thought my thoughts. I do the things I do not just based on my situation, but also who I am, and what's happened to me. I can't expect other people to behave the same as me. Having confronted this, I feel robbed of my anger. My fellow passengers are no longer demons, but simply people I don't understand, and don't know how to get through to.

I remain, however, scared and deeply frustrated.

Doing what feels write

“I am a writer”. An article I read about writing points out that it’s pretty hard to become a writer without having said or written this sentence at some point, and encourages new writers to start by writing it and building from there. (In fact, that’s how I started this post.)

But why am I a writer? What is it that motivates me to record my thoughts, and publish them? I think it’s my desire to share myself with others. While I enjoy being on my own at times, I don’t like being lonely. If I can tell other people what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, then I don’t feel unseen. I feel like I’m cared for. And I feel safer, because it’s less likely that others will misunderstand my actions and words as insensitive or unkind.

Sharing myself with others is something I’m driven to do. I’m quite talkative, and I’m entirely capable of talking your ear off. I’ve gotten better about it; I can be rather perceptive, and I try to check often with my listeners to make sure I’m not taking more than my share of time. And I think people usually enjoy talking with me. But still the opportunities to share are dwarfed by what I have to share.

Blogging feels different. I don’t feel like I’m keeping you captive because you’re afraid to insult me by walking away mid-conversation. You are welcome here, but I don’t want to trap you here. I don’t want to draw you in with

I really don’t. But I do yearn to be heard.

It’s more likely that I’ll stay small, I think. There are so many people out there competing for attention, there’s so much content to consume. I certainly can’t assume that many people will be drawn to my ideas, or that they’ll stick around. And I do want them to. Despite my belief that fame, success, and wealth are probably bad for you, I still seem to want these things.

So I’ll write

If you are reading this, thank you! I appreciate you. It’s an amorphous, uncertain appreciation. I don’t know who’s going to read this, or when. Perhaps I’ll get traction somewhere, somewhen, somehow, and people will flock to this and other posts. If it happens, perhaps by then I will no longer be quite the same person I am now, the one writing this.

For you who are reading this (hi Mom! for one) what does that feel like, for you and for me? What is it like, to have an audience spread out across time? What is it like, to be a part of that audience? We are connected through this medium by tenuous strands, you with me, you with each other. If you pluck the strands of my web, will I feel it? If you fell a tree in the forest of my imagination, will I hear it? And if I don’t, is that tree even a part of my reality?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Soldering on

Electronics work often involves connecting different components together to form an electrical connection, and there are a number of ways to do that. We’re all familiar with a very simple connection: wall plugs. A device that needs electricity in order to run needs an active electrical current, and if it doesn’t have its own power supply (like a battery or a car engine), it needs to connect to an external source. When you plug your vacuum cleaner into the wall, you temporarily connect the electrical innards of your vacuum with an electrical circuit that runs through the walls of your house.

The vacuum is a pretty simple case, because the only thing it needs from the electrical connection is power. Data can also be transferred through these connections. The cable that runs from the back of a desktop PC to the monitor uses the electricity to send data that the monitor can understand as instructions to display a certain pattern on the screen. Some cables can only send power, some can only send data, and some can do both. USB is an example of this last category.

The connections I’ve mentioned so far are all designed to be easily reversible. You push the plug into the socket, and it stays there until you pull it out. Maybe you use built-in screws to make it more secure. But the idea is that you want to be able to move a plug from one socket to another without too much bother. There are other connections that are more permanent, and that’s what I’m learning about right now. A central component of these connections is called solder.

Solder (pronounced “sodder” in the US) is a metal alloy that you can use to form secure electrical connections between pieces that start out separate. Solder conducts electricity, so if you have two wires and solder connects them, current can flow from one wire, through the solder, and into the second wire. Solder also has a relatively low melting point, only a few hundred degrees Celcius. It can be melted with hand tools, and applied to your components. This forms a solid connection, essentially making your wires into one connected piece.

Behold my very first soldering connection!

It is not great. It is exposed, and therefore not really safe. But it will conduct electricity from one wire into the other. Probably.

Solder itself is not entirely safe. It often contains lead, which is poisonous to humans when ingested. I’ve been using a Tin/Lead solder, so I’ve had to be careful to wash my hands before touching food or my face holes. But it’s hard! I’m touching my phone as I work on electronics, so I’m probably getting lead on it, and then I use my phone throughout the day. Is this safe? I’m not sure! 😬

Soldering: Day 2: Hup to, Solder!

On this day, I learned that soldering is hard, sometimes painful, and potentially expensive. I also learned that making mistakes can be fun!

I’m building a quadcopter drone first, before I even get started on the rocketdrone. There’s a lot that I don’t know about what goes into a drone, so it’s really hard to make informed design decisions about the rocket drone at this point. Like I discussed last time, you can split a problem up into separate components, and figure out how to solve problems more locally. I don’t want to be figuring out how drones work for the first time when I’m building the rocketdrone; that way leads to overwhelmedness and frustration.

The first not-just-practice things I tried to solder were two wires and an XT60 connector. This will help me connect the battery to the rest of the drone, which will let me power on components as I add them. This means that I can test the components right away, so I can see if I’m connecting things correctly.

The XT60 is a standard electrical connector often used in drones and other remote control products. I’m using it to plug the battery into the rest of the device.

And soldering it was hard. I was trying to get the wire to fit into a copper receptacle that wasn’t much bigger than the wire itself.

In order to make a connection, you usually want to apply solder to the two surfaces you’re trying to join (this is called “tinning” them), heat them both up so the solder melts, and then join them. The solder cools very quickly, so in seconds, you have a solid connection. To melt the solder I’d applied to the plug, I was sticking the soldering iron—a heated, pointed metal stick—into the wire receptacle. The video I watched made it look pretty easy. Unfortunately, it seems that copper conducts heat very well, and once of the things that was heating up was the plastic of the plug.

So the plastic kinda melted a bit, and the metal pin kinda moved a bit.

And this little Yossi went wee wee wee all the way to the hobby store to get new connectors. Which really wasn’t that bad!

Taking chances, making mistakes, getting messy

I had a conversation with my therapist the morning of the day I ended up trying to solder for the first time. He said that, if you’re trying to invent something, which I guess I am, there are going to be failures. You are going to break things. You’re often going to learn something when you break something, but it will be broken and you will need another one.

I’ve realized recently that, for all that I identify as a scientist (someone who doesn’t have any absolute, unshakable beliefs, someone who is willing to change their mind when they’re wrong, someone who treats mistakes as opportunities to learn something new), I hate making mistakes. I feel like I’m going to be found out to be a fraud, or it feels like I’ve proven that I’m not good at things and I’ll always fail. Growing up, I think I often felt like I was disappointing someone. And that reinforced to the point that I’m reluctant to try new things, because I might not do them well. I might mess up. The perfect becomes the enemy of the good, or the good enough, or even the better than before, and I just don’t try.

And yeah, I totally did make mistakes soldering. I ruined some of my hardware, and had to buy more. I burned myself a little, on the heated pins, on the soldering iron, and on tiny balls of melted solder. And you know what? It felt amazing. Trying something new, screwing up, knowing that I’ve just hit a little bump but damn it I’m going to overcome it, and then actually overcoming it, felt so good. I have been missing so much by playing it safe. From now on, I’m going to try things, and mess up, and keep trying. I’m going to learn, and improve, and it’s gonna be great.

So the next thing I did was give up and go home 🙃.

Getting by with a little help from my friends

I’m not always going to know how to make progress. In this case, I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with soldering the wires to the XT60 connector. So I arranged to meet up with a friend who’d offered to help me learn various shop tools.

Having that help was a big asset. Sure, I was stalled for a couple days until we would meet up, but I wasn’t stalled due to uncertainty. I knew what the next step was, and waiting and being patient was actually part of the process.

It turns out that I hadn’t been tinning (pre-applying solder to) the soldering iron. When the heated, liquid solder on the soldering iron contacts the heated, but still solid, solder on the wire, the solid almost magically becomes liquid. This makes things so much easier.

After my friend’s help, I made much better progress. Take a look at this chip!

This is the power distribution board (PDB) for the drone. It takes power from the battery and supplies it to all of the components in the drone: the flight controller, the motors, and the cameras if present. You can see that I’ve successfully attached the wires to the yellow XT60 connector by now. Further, I’ve soldered the connector wires to the PDB. Note how I’ve tinned the pads of the board. See how the solder is only on those copper pads, and not on the black material surrounding the pads? I don’t know what this black material is, but it seems to repel the solder, which means that you don’t have to be as careful when applying the solder. What you want to avoid is the solder from one pad and wire coming into contact with another wire, or “bridging”. This can cause an electrical short. The solder-repelling material is a big help.

My next step is to connect one of the motors to the PDB and figure out how to activate it. I’ll have more on that soon!

Composing a suite vehicle

Let’s get to it! What are we actually working on here?

The project goal is to launch a vehicle vertically using a model rocket engine, then descend and land under rotor power. The vehicle itself will be one, combined piece, but we can think of the different components separately, as things that can we can figure out independently, and then put together to form the working whole.

So what are the pieces? The project goal tells us what each component is supposed to do:

1. Ascend using a model rocket engine

2. Descend and land under rotor power

This is a bit of a cheat; we’ve already constrained what we can use to solve the problem. If we hadn’t already decided to merge, specifically, a model rocket and a drone, we might propose various solutions, compare them, and then pick the ones that seem to work best. As it is, there’s mostly one kind of thing that uses a model rocket engine—a model rocket—and one kind of thing that uses rotors to move vertically—a multicopter (or less generically, a quadcopter, aka drone). In fact, let’s start by removing the rotor requirement:

2. Descend and land under power

Hmm, these requirements are pretty vague. How will we know if we’ve succeeded? Sure, if our vehicle pops up two feet on a tiny explosion, then turns on rotors and falls without hurting itself, that might technically meet the requirements. But it’s not what we really want. Let’s set some more specific goals:

1. Ascend to 1000 feet in altitude in under 10 seconds

2. Land with a final vertical velocity of under 2 feet per second, within 5 feet of a target point

3. Don’t separate into pieces

This is much better. Now we’ll be able to check whether the choices we make fit well with our goals. Note that the numbers we’ve selected are pretty arbitrary; after all, this isn’t a government plane or rocket whose contract is written with the vehicle’s use in mind. So these numbers might change, and that’s ok! If they do, we can reevaluate our choices in light of the new requirements. It’s pretty easy to make mistakes when that happens, though; some earlier decisions might be carried forward into the updated design without checking that they’re still appropriate, and that can cause problems. So we’ll try not to change things too much.

Admittedly, we’ve chosen these numbers so we pretty much have to use a rocket engine to ascend, and rotors to descend. This is another cheat, so to make amends, let’s at least propose alternative solutions and see how they do.

Ascent

The first requirement is to reach 1000 feet in under 10 seconds.

Solutions for ascent:

• rotors

• rocket engine

• one of those stompy rocket things for five-year-olds

Based on what I can find online, most drones are going to max out at something below 70 mph, which would just get us to 1000 feet in 10 seconds, if we didn’t have to first accelerate. I’m also guessing that this max speed is for moving horizontally; going upward, against gravity, might be slower.

Can model rockets reach this height? Some definitely can, but many of them are very light. We’re going to have the added weight of the quadcopter pieces, which model rockets typically (obviously) don’t have. I think it should be possible, but I haven’t done the math yet! It could be that this simply isn’t possible without making a really big rocket. This is a part of the problem I’m going to set aside for now. If we find out that 1000 feet in 10 seconds isn’t doable, we’ll change the requirements, and we’ll be sad about it 😞 but we will persevere 💪.

Can we use a stomp rocket? No. No we can’t. Duh. But now I know what I’m getting my goddaughter for Chanukah!

Descent

The second requirement is to land softly, and near to a target.

Solutions for descent:

• rocket engine

• rotors

• parachute

Could we use another rocket engine, like SpaceX does? The short answer is no. The long answer is hell no. I think what SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing is really cool, and they’re part of the inspiration for this project. But model rocket engines can’t throttle or steer, and they don’t always ignite reliably or in a reliable amount of time. So it simply isn’t possible to use a model rocket engine. And I am not qualified to use something more complex. Let’s keep it safe!

Rotors are a good bet. Drones are capable of controlled vertical and horizontal movement, and of making minor changes in velocity. A good approach would be to make sure that the vehicle can hover, and ideally maintain altitude while moving horizontally.

How about a parachute? Well, that’s the solution we’re trying to improve on, so we already suspect that it can’t slow the rocket enough. Apogee Rockets suggests that if you want to descend on a parachute, you should shoot for falling at 3.5-4.5 meters per second, or about 11.5-14.5 feet per second. So the parachute won’t work. Additionally, a parachute wouldn’t allow the vehicle to aim for a particular landing site; instead, it would be at the mercy of the wind. Finally, a parachute would violate the third requirement, because in order to expose the parachute, a model rocket has to pop its nose off. This would mean separating into pieces. The pieces are connected by a cord, but they’re still distinct pieces in my book.

Conclusion

The two pieces, then, are

1. model rocket—our up-goer

2. quadcopter drone—our down-comer

Separating these components conceptually means that we don’t have to complete one before working on the other. There are many ways that decisions in one component will impact the design of the other, but we don’t have to know exactly what that decision will be in order to make good progress elsewhere.

I think this is a good place to leave things for now! I have more stuff written about aerodynamics, and identifying the front of the vehicle (not so simple!) but I’d like to keep these posts reasonably bite-sized, so they don’t overwhelm the reader. Not overwhelming people with detail upon detail of in-depth explanation is something I’m working on 🙂.

Until next time! Have a goodun!

Hi and welcome!

Welcome to Rocket Feels! I’ve never done a blog before, so this will be a fun learning experience for me.

Rocket

I’m starting this blog to tell you about my new personal project, which will merge two separate, independently cool devices: a model rocket, and a quadcopter. Why?

1. Cuz it’ll be cool

2. Cuz it’ll be fun

3. Parachutes don’t slow model rockets down enough

   1. Although honestly, I’m not certain this is a problem that actually needs solving. See 1 and 2 above for why that’s ok

When you launch a model rocket, it go up, and it come down. The going up is driven by a small solid rocket motor, which is ignited by an electric charge. It burns propellant for a few seconds of flight, then it coasts for a few seconds, then it ignites another piece of fuel that pops a parachute out the front of the rocket. The rocket then drifts down on the parachute, and lands at several feet per second.

A rocket which lands, in my opinion, too fast

The problem I’ll be solving is that the rocket is going too fast when it hits the ground. There’s a risk of something breaking. I would prefer that the rocket land more softly. Again, is this really a concern? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Doesn’t really matter! Cuz it’ll be cool, and it’ll be fun 😁.

A few months ago, I took the first step towards making this project real by returning to model rockets for the first time since summer camp as a kid.

As my 19-month old housemate would say, “kshhhhhh!”

It’s actually a good metaphor for what you can expect here: definite missteps, not always progressing, but we’ll get there in the end, and with good humor throughout. I hope you’ll join me!

Feels

The other thing you you can expect from this blog is my honesty, and an insight into who I am. I’m not very good at keeping myself to myself; when someone greets me with “How are you?”, I usually give them an actual answer. What I think saves me from the “Look, I’m just being honest” attitude, which can lead to real hurt, is that I always, always, try to be kind. To other people, at least. I’m working on being kinder to myself.

So I invite you along on my journey. It’ll be fun!

P.S.

The other other thing you can expect is puns and general silliness. I love puns. I rocket making puns, and I’m generally quite silly.

P.P.S.

I’ve gotten the subscription system set up, and it seems to work? I’d be honored and delighted if you would subscribe. If you check back once in a while, there might be new posts ready for you, but the bestest way for you to follow along is to subscribe 😁. But no presh! I get not wanting yet more emails in your life.