Science Report
01Mar2017

Experiment: Optinvent AR Glasses
Person filling in the report: Louis Maller

Today the Optinvent AR Glasses were tested during the EVA by myself, with Victoria monitoring the computer from the Hab.
The recording function worked appropriately, I was able to start and stop recording with movements of my head. I had changed the “stop recording function” to a smaller gesture – tilting the head to the right. It is much more convenient and worked quite well. I think I will change the other functions in a similar way.
One for the functions was relaunching AirDroid by looking up. It is quite difficult to look up enough for the function to be triggered, so it will be nice to do it.
Victoria was monitoring the image from the glasses’ camera on the computer, connected to the glasses through a LAN created by my phone. We did some range tests. In conclusion the range (which is the range of the wifi signal) is between 10 and 20 meters. Once the connection is lost, you need to come quite close to the Hab (less than 10 meters), relaunch AirDroid (using the looking up trigger), and the Hab is able to reconnect to the glasses’ camera.
The recording quality is acceptable, the readings that I have recorded are intelligible.
Now I will start thinking of other ways of using the glasses with head movement. The problem is finding movements that are both feasible and won’t trigger functions by accident. It would be nice to be able to slideshow procedures with the glasses, but the succession of necessary movements might be complicated to implement.

Experiment: Balloon
Person filling in the report: Simon Bouriat

Today the balloon was deployed during the EVA. It took quite a while to do all the knots with the gloves, but it was necessary to be sure the balloon would be strongly tethered to the ground. It eventuelly inflated and rose. It was set up at the usual spot, in the plain north of the Hab. The wind, even if it was quite low, still was a problem for the balloon.
We left it fly during the rest of the EVA, and got the GoPro back from it before coming back to the Hab: it had teken some pretty good shots!
We could watch the balloon from the Hab. But early in the afternoon, it wasn’t in sight anymore. We suspect that either it managed somehow to untether (strings sawed off by rocks?) and blew away, or it ripped apart and crashed somewhere out of sight. we will investigate the site during tomorrow’s EVA to determine cause of death.