A fun trick with a pole is to try to balance it so that it can stand on one end. This can be done in a few ways, such as by exerting a force on either end to counterbalance any force that threatens to make it fall over. The approach that [Peter Ryseck] chose was to cobble together what is effectively a flying drone for on top of a standing pole, without cheating such as by simply lifting it off the ground.
Getting to the point where the drone could react quickly enough to changes in the pole’s orientation was the hardest part, as the quieter, larger propellers also have a lot more inertia. This ruled out using 10″ blades, while triple 5″ blades seemed to work well enough. For the avionics a standard quadcopter control board and software is used, with the programming such that it’ll react appropriately without causing additional instabilities.
Naturally making this work took some trial and error, with issues like oscillations plaguing the system. One unexpected problem was that the pole – taken from a pool fishing net – was flexible enough to add its own instabilities to the system. In the video all these issues and their solutions are explained in detail, along with the ultimate result. One very neat solution here for example is to have the pole lean into the wind, which is a more stable configuration than insisting on having the pole be at a perfect ninety degrees with the ground.
Perfect addition to The Crusty Ankle
Make it rain!
The what?
Yeah I’m gonna need you to elaborate about the ankle, you can’t just spur my curiosity like that
Well, the pole dancers at the Booby Trap here in Alabama were so large you would probably need to cannibalize some Soviet Mi-6 choppers to keep the pole upright.
Oh man that’s quite a visual
Awesome!
larger propellers -> excessive inertia -> swashplate to recover response time, maybe?
I admit the smaller props seem to be the easy way out
(on the up side, it’d make for one angry stick … you may have come across the helicopter action in that genre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCb5TcEmdow&t=50s )
Ah, goblins were always angry
Why not just use 3 props @ 120 ° ?
…Could possibly even do it with two props, one for thrust and the second pointing upwards, and its job is merely to spin the thrust prop in the correct direction
I’d rather have the quad.
Monostable multivibrator kept in temporary state, and also a perfect model of living paycheck to paycheck.
I wonder if 3 or 4 fins would make it much more stable by adding resistance vs adding attack area by wind.
Why not use inertia to your advantage? Instead of propellers, use powered high-speed gyroscopes. It works for NASA.
2 things. 1 – what is a good practical use for it? 2 – What if you put a small mass balance at some part way up the pole? That may tune out vibration and reduce sway.
1 – it depends on whether you can tolerate a rod with spinning props slamming into a crowd. Might even count as a deterrent.
https://www.wcctv.com/products/solar-surveillance-trailers/
I can think of one thing. A surveyor could use a pole like this. Surveying would become a one man job.
Surveying has been a one man job for quite some time now. Either it is a remote controlled theodolite that can hone in on the pole or it is a pole with a high precision GPS unit on top with no need for a line of sight to the base station.
As a Pole, i appreciate any efforts to balance me on my way home after nice evening with Zubrowka.