Thanksgiving Turkey Quadcopter Shenanigans

November 26, 2010 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

The challenge: can you build a flying turkey that drops pumpkin pie bombs? That’s the question that Utah Aerials asked themselves and they did manage to make it happen. Of course they’re not starting from scratch, but adding a little holiday cheer to an existing quadcopter in the form of a spray painted turkey fuselage. The cheapest pumpkin pie they could find was hung from the copter with care, and dumped thanks to a servo motor. Check the video after the break to see if they were able to hit their balding-bullseye or not.

Seems like the wicked witch music should have been the background for that video.

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Wooden Quadcopter Body

September 30, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 3 Comments

brings back memories of balsa wood gliders

[Greasetattoo] shares the process of building his wooden quadcopter body that won 2nd place in the Minnesota state fair. His plans were purchased as a kit back in 1999, but he never got around to actually building them. The original plans called for a foam board body, but he felt that a wooden piece of art would be much nicer. This build isn’t focusing on the electronics, they’re just a kit from Mikrokopter. Instead, it is a log of the entire process of making the beautiful wooden body. He really put some nice detail in there from the layered and nicely finished dome to the little oak sleeves for his motors. Great job [Greasetattoo].

Easy Quadrotor Helicopter Instructions

September 8, 2010 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

Here’s a great tutorial on building your own quadrotor helicopter. This build isn’t necessarily less expensive than others we’ve seen since quality motors, propellers, and control circuitry aren’t cheap. But the design and assembly is well documented and presents a well-planned building procedure. The carbon-fiber tubes that make up the frame have extensions to protect the motors and propellers in the event of a crash. The Arduino, IMU, and transceiver are all tucked away between two aluminum body plates as well. They only thing missing is a solid methodology for tuning the four motors, a critical procedure that is just touched up at the end of the article.

Update: Acrobatic Quadcopters Team Up

July 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

We usually envision small wheeled robots when we thing about swarm robotics but these cooperative quadcopters make us think again. This is an extension of the same project that produced those impressive aerial acrobatics. It may not be as flashy, but watching groups of the four-rotored flyers grab onto and lift loads is quite impressive. There is also a shot of one dropping a 2×4 and immediately compensating for the loss of weight. We’re not certain, but it looks like team lifting doesn’t require the 20 high-speed camera rig that the acrobatics did. We’ve embedded the demonstration video after the break.

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Cameras Perch On Power Lines, Steal Electricity

June 28, 2010 by Mike Szczys 74 Comments

[Tim] let us know about a video outlining some covert camera devices the Air Force is developing (dead link, try the Internet Archive version). The video takes a lot of time to explain induction to those who’ve never heard of it but we liked to see the bird-like concept animations. They’ve already developed cameras that will clamp on to power lines in order to use induction as a power source. Shown in the video is an eight-rotor quadcopter they’re hoping to use to deliver the camera covertly. But the animations show a winged robot similar to a hawk that has a camera for a head. Having seen some of the other flying devices in development this may not actually be that far off.

Quadcopter Acrobatics Like Nothing We’ve Seen

May 28, 2010 by Mike Szczys 37 Comments

The University of Pennsylvania has churned out some impressive moves with a quadcopter. Perching on a vertical landing pad with some help from Velcro is impressive, but single and double flips combined with navigating through tight spaces at an angle makes this just amazing. We expect to see it in the next Bond film if it doesn’t show up in one of this summer’s action flicks. Kind of makes previously awesome quadcopters look a bit pedestrian. Video after the break.

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Aircraft Carrier Is Moving Target For Autonomous Quadcopter

May 25, 2010 by Mike Szczys 26 Comments

[Karl-Engelbert Wenzel] developed a UAV capable of taking off and landing on a moving platform autonomously. The platform operates aircraft-carrier-style by driving around the room in circles. The quadcopter tracks a grid of IR LEDs at the front of the landing deck by using the IR camera from a Wii remote. The best part is that the flight controls and processing are all done by the copter’s onboard ATmega644 processor, not requiring a connection to a PC. The landings are quite accurate, achieving a maximum error of less than 40 centimeters. In the video after the break you can see the first landing is slightly off the mark but the next two are dead on target.

So build yourself a mobile platform and pair it up with your newly finished quadcopter to replicate this delightful hack.

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