RC Batwing Actually Flies

June 16, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 6 Comments

Batman is a compelling superhero for enough reasons that he’s been a cultural force for the better part of a century. His story has complex characters, interesting explorations of morality, iconic villains, and of course a human superhero who gets his powers from ingenuity instead of a fantastical magical force. There are a number features of the Batman universe that don’t translate well to the real world, though, such as a costume that would likely be a hindrance in fights, technology that violates the laws of physics, and a billionaire that cares about regular people, but surprisingly enough his legendary Batwing jet airplane actually seems like it might be able to fly.

While this is admittedly a model plane, it flies surprisingly well for its nontraditional shape. [hotlapkyle] crafted it using mostly 3D printed parts, and although it took a few tries to get it working to his standards, now shoots through the air quite well. It uses an internal electric ducted fan (EDF) to get a high amount of thrust, and has elevons for control. There are two small vertical stabilizer fins which not only complete the look, but allow the Batwing to take to the skies without the need for a flight controller.

Not only is the build process documented in the video linked below with some interesting tips about building RC aircraft in general, but the STL files for this specific build are available for anyone wanting to duplicate the build or expand on it. There are plenty of other interesting 3D-printed models on [hotlapkyle]’s page as well that push the envelope of model aircraft. For some other niche RC aircraft designs we’ve seen in the past be sure to check out this F-35 model that can hover or this tilt-rotor Osprey proof-of-concept.

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Grappling Hook Robot Swings Like Spiderman

August 28, 2021 by Al Williams 3 Comments

We’ll admit it is a bit of a gimmick, but [Adam Beedle’s] Spider-Bot did make us smile. The little robot can launch a “web” and use it to swing. It is hard to picture, but the video below will make it all clear. It can also use the cable to climb a wall, sort of.

The bot’s ability to fling a 3D printed hook on a tether is remarkable. Details are scarce, but it looks like the mechanism is spring-loaded with a servo motor to release it. Even trailing a bit of string behind it, the range of the hook is impressive and can support the weight of the robot when it winches itself up. There’s even a release mechanism that reminds us more of Batman than Spiderman.

If we were going full autonomous, we’d consider a vision system. On the other hand, you could probably tell a lot by the tension on the cable and some way to measure the angle of it coming out of the robot. If you come up with a practical use for any of this, we’d love to see it.

We’ve seen robots that fly, jump, and can climb walls before. We don’t remember one that swings like Tarzan.

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Hack Together Your Own Bat Signal

July 11, 2020 by Orlando Hoilett 27 Comments

Bats use echolocation to see objects in front of them. They emit an ultrasonic pulse around 20 kHz (and up to 100 kHz) and then sense the pulses as they reflect off an object and back to the bat. It’s the same type of mechanism used by ultrasonic proximity sensors for object-avoidance. Humans (except perhaps the very young ones) can’t hear the ultrasonic pulses since the frequency is too high, but an inexpensive microphone in a simple bat detector could. As it turns out bat detectors are available off the shelf, but where’s the fun in that? So, like any good hacker, [WilkoL] decided to build his own.

[WilkoL’s] design is composed primarily of an electret microphone, microphone preamplifier, CD4040 binary counter, LM386 audio amplifier, and a speaker. Audio signals are analog and their amplitudes vary based on how close the sound is to the microphone. [WilkoL] wanted to pick up bat sounds as far away as possible, so he cranked up the gain of the microphone preamplifier by quite a bit, essentially railing the amplifiers. Since he mostly cares about the frequency of the sound and not the amplitude, he wasn’t concerned about saturating the transistor output.

The CD4040 then divides the signal by a factor of 16, generating an output signal within the audible frequency range of the human ear. A bat signal of 20 kHz divides down to 1.25 kHz and a bat signal of up to 100 kHz divides down to 6.25 kHz.

He was able to test his bat detector with an ultrasonic range finder and by the noise generated from jingling his keychain (apparently there are some pretty non-audible high-frequency components from jingling keys). He hasn’t yet been able to get a recording of his device picking up bats. It has detected bats on a number of occasions, but he was a bit too late to get it on video.

Anyway, we’re definitely looking forward to seeing the bat detector in action! Who knows, maybe he’ll find Batman.

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Shape Shifting Structures Work With Magnets

December 15, 2018 by Brian McEvoy 12 Comments

In The Dark Knight, Lucius Fox shows Bruce Wayne a neat bit of memory weave fabric. In its resting state, it is a light, flexible material, but when an electrical current is applied, it pops into a pre-programmed shape. That shape could be a tent or a bat-themed paraglider. Science has not caught up to Hollywood in this regard, but the concept has been demonstrated in a material which increases its rigidity up to 318% within one second when placed in a magnetic field. Those numbers do not mean a lot by themselves, but increasing rigidity in a reversible, non-chemical way is noteworthy.

The high-level explanation is that hollow tubes are 3D printed and filled with magnetorheological fluid which becomes more viscous in the presence of a magnet because the ferrous suspended particles bunch up to form chains instead of sliding over one another. Imagine a bike tire filled with gel, and when you need a little extra traction the tire becomes softer, but when you are cruising on a paved trail, the tire becomes as hard as a train wheel to reduce friction. That could be darn handy in more places than building a fast bike.

Quick Robin! The Bat Keychain!

August 9, 2017 by Al Williams 3 Comments

We don’t know if Batman has a keychain for the keys to the Bat mobile, the Bat copter, and all his other vehicles. But we are guessing if he did, it didn’t look like the one [krishnan793] picked up cheap. It had a little button that lit up some LEDs and played a little tune. [Krishnan] thought he could do better with an ESP8266. After chopping up some headphones and adding a LiPo battery, he wound up with an improved key chain you can see in the video below. The first video is the before video. The second is after the modification. Sure, it is only a small improvement on LEDs and a simple tune, but now it is hackable to do more interesting things if you want to take the trouble to do so.

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Hackaday Links: September 11, 2012

September 11, 2012 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

Xbee sensors at Lowe’s?

Lowe’s, the home improvement big box store, is selling some home automation items which might be Xbee compatible. They’re being sold under the brand name Iris. There is some debate as to whether they’re Xbee, or just 802.15.4 hardware. Either way they might be worth checking out for your wireless projects.

Father sword replica from Conan the Barbarian

Sometimes its just fun to watch the master at work. In this case it’s a blacksmith replicating the sword from Conan the Barbarian. [via Reddit]

LG washing machine that phones home

LG has built an interesting troubleshooting feature into some of their washing machines. This video shows the encoded audio it will output if you use the right button combination. You’re supposed to hold your phone up to the machine while talking to customer service and they’ll be able to get some type of debugging information from the dial-up modem type of sounds. If you end up decoding this audio we want to know about it! [Thanks Pedro]

MicroSD card adapter for Raspberry Pi

[TopHatHacker] was surprised to see a full-sized SD card slot on the Raspberry Pi. His temporary solution to get his microSD card working was to uses a miniSD adapter. He cut away the case and bent the pins until they lined up with the microSD card.

Batman’s cowl for retro motorcycle enthusiasts

Okay, we think this Batman cowl in the style of 1950’s motorcycle garb is pretty cool. Just realize that if you’re seen wearing this you will be thought of as one of the crazy guys in town. [via BoingBoing]

Flying Batman Is A Load Of Bull

July 12, 2012 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

Batman’s ability to fly is a falsehood. Or at least so says science. We didn’t know science was into disproving super-hero movies (that’s a deep well to drink from) but to each his own. But back in December the Journal of Physics Special Topics took on the subject with their scholarly paper entitled Trajectory of a Falling Batman. The equations presented in the two-page white paper may be above your head, but the concepts are not.

It’s not that Batman can’t fly in the way explained in the film. It’s that he can’t land without great bodily harm. By analyzing the cape in this frame of the film, researchers used Batman’s body height to establish wing span and area. The numbers aren’t good. Top speed will reach about 110 km/h with a sustained velocity of 80 km/h. That’s 80 mph at top speed and just under 50 mph when he comes in for a landing.

Oh Batman, how you’ve let us all down. If you liked this paper, you should dig through the archives. We always wondered if [Bruce Willis] could have actually saved the world from an asteroid.

[via Dvice]