Pioupiou, that's not
not just a windcatcher. It's a real adventure.
It's an adventure we're all on together, with the same
objective: to build better weather information for our
activities.

Let's be honest: if
today Pioupiou exists, it's as much my fault as the
your. Without this beautiful community that has supported me from the beginning,
I would never have had the courage to take the plunge. The project would be
probably one more idea gathering dust in a corner of
my head…

It's only the
beginning of the adventure. Pioupiou is still a baby bird, who
asks only to grow and gain confidence.

Our community
is strong and full of skills. If we come to us
organize to put our collective intelligence to work, so
we can easily create the best weather beacon on the market.
Is there a need to wait? Let's get organized
now !

Friday's story

I always was
very bad at working in a team. I have this bad
habit of wanting to do everything, immediately and alone.
Result: I don't bother to ask for help, and
I'm wasting a lot of time looking for the solution myself in Google.
Suddenly, I am overwhelmed to do not much.

So it seems to me
that the "minimum" stage of collective work is to keep you
informed.

This is why, at
From this Friday, October 3, and every following Friday, I
I will publish on this blog a summary of the work of the week.

So you will know
exactly where the project is, what are the points on which
I work and what are the difficulties that I encounter.
Thus, you will detect the subjects on which you can help me.
You can react via the comments of the article, or via the
tools that I will present to you.

Open Pioupiou

As promised during
the KissKissBankBank, Pioupiou campaign is open-source. The details
of the design, the diagrams, source codes as well as the files
of manufacture are available and freely reusable.

It's the strategy
cake:

- I did a
cake. We ate it. It was good.

- Now, if I
give you my recipe, you can improve it with the super technique
secret from your grandmother. So next time the cake will be
even better !

In short, I put the
Pioupiou recipe on http://open.pioupiou.fr.
This site works on the same principle as Wikipedia: you
can discuss and modify the pages, to contribute your knowledge or
your point of view. So if you have a great recipe for
grandmother to improve Pioupiou, that's where you have to come
share.

I have not yet
had time to mark everything that hangs around in my head, but it's
already a start. The objective is to have a sort of notebook
lab, where to record all thoughts on the design and
manufacture of Pioupiou.

And you, what do you know how to do?

The crucial point for collective work is to know to whom
ask the right questions.

You who read these lines, you probably have a life experience,
a profession, knowledge that can help for this project. You
don't necessarily have time to take an interest in all the little ones
details of the project, nor even to follow its progress every
weeks. On the other hand, you surely have time to receive some
lines in an email from time to time, and to respond to them if you
know the subject.

I therefore suggest that you register in the "Directory of
skills” by Pioupiou. So I can contact you
occasionally, if I need advice in your field.

" It's here : https://open.pioupiou.fr/Annuaire_des_compétences

Tell me what's going to mess

Has your club already installed a beacon? You know what's going
break down ?

Help us to list all the potential points of
failure.

" It's here : https://open.pioupiou.fr/Points_de_défaillance_connus

This way we can anticipate them and therefore reduce the problems
future.

At the ?

To make it move
things, you also need to be able to discuss in real time. So I have
set up a chat.

" It's here : http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=pioupiou-dev

(For the geeks:
irc.freenode.net / #pioupiou-dev)

This chat is intended
to host technical discussions for the development of
Pioupiou.

I will try to be
logged in when I'm in the office. That is roughly from Monday to
Friday from 9 a.m. to 19 p.m. It's a test. I don't promise to be able
answer all questions. But like that you know where to me
join.

And now…

I have three points to study for the coming week:

Design

As I can no longer rely on
the commercial anemo that I used (not robust enough), it will
I have to create my own anemo (which will delay the October deliveries, but not the March ones).

Which raises the question of design.
How to make a pretty and still cute Pioupiou, while
respecting the technical constraints. (injection mouldability
plastic, antenna, batteries, solar panel, sensor
temperature ?…) ?

I started to explain it all
on the wiki : https://open.pioupiou.fr/V1:Design (I will complete during the
week)

anemo

For the ultrasonic anemo, I probably won't have the
enough time to test. In addition, there are new sensors to
ultrasounds based on MEMS which will arrive within a few months,
but which are currently not available. So we will stay
on a cup anemo for this version. » weeks

I ask myself the question: should we keep the weather vane
or put an asymmetrical cup anemometer, as I
explained in the previous article? On one side the weather vane
it is reliable. − How do these asymmetrical cups behave
when the bearing ages? − But on the other side, the
the fact of not having a wind vane greatly facilitates the
design. Because we can put the solar panel on top and
the antenna, and at the bottom the cups. Brief. I will do some tests
asymmetrical cups this week, just to see what it's for
looks like. » weeks

Another question is the shape of the cups. It's not pratical
to be molded in plastic. And right now, I can't afford
to have very complicated moulds. Can we find another form
more moldable? Half cups? cups
modular? Something like a propeller? There too,
I'm going to heat up the 3D printer to test. » weeks

Finally, if we have cups or anything that spins,
a mechanical connection is required. What will hold up best?
Stainless steel ball bearings, ceramic balls? Polymer bearing
self-lubricating? See same synthetic ruby ​​bearing, as
in watches? » weeks

GSM

I had requests for an "international" Pioupiou, and therefore
in mobile. We should be able to optimize consumption a little, but that
will always be far superior to that of Sigfox techno. He will
so I have to measure exactly how much, because we want to know
quickly what is the size of solar panel and battery
that we need. The idea is to design a single platform for
Pioupiou, needing only very few modifications to
operate either via Sigfox or via GSM. » weeks

international name

I think the name Pioupiou is absolutely brilliant. But he
seems that in some languages, it has a negative connotation.

I am therefore looking for an "international" name, which
be as cool as Pioupiou. But so far I haven't found it.
If you have any ideas, you can put them here: http://goo.gl/forms/fXcrGRKB39

The End

Sorry, this article is written less funny than the previous ones.
I managed to burn out all my energy, after chaining the
longest month of my life: return of summer, creation of the
box, meetings at Météo-France, Coupe Icare (where Pioupiou
incidentally won the innovation prize), ECOMET meeting in Venice
et conférence in Budapest. I started writing this article
on the plane back, and there I am on the highway coming back
from Geneva airport. We are at the Crolles toll station,
sign that the house is not very far away. It's starting to feel
paragliding. I will post this article, eat, watch why
Météo-Parapente crashed (apparently? I had an SMS…).
Then sleep and weekend. I don't know if it flies yet, I'll see
entering.

Maybe this weekend in the air? Otherwise, see you Friday
next !