Tuesday, October 28, 2014

3D printed Quad Copter

My son sent me a picture of his custom designed quad copter.  (It's an upside down shot but a shot none-the-less).  He'll be using this as a prototype for teaching a student lead class on quad copter design.  90% of the parts are 3D printed using CAD designs from Sean.  The electronics are all stock items.

The first test flight was "kinda" successful it went up about 4 feet hovered (all good) then flipped over and crashed into the ground (not so good) and hence the picture of the unit is repair.  Sean thinks its a wiring issue but time will tell.

His goal is to have a working unit by the end of November.  The class will be limited to 10-13 students and will start in January - by the end of the semester each student will have their own drone.  I wish we had classes like this when I went to college.  Of course back then the Wright brothers were still messing about with bicycles and just staring into the sky with longing looks.

Sean just found out his project got a grant from the School for $10,000 to fund both the class and making the course online accessible for other colleges and high schools - pretty cool.

On an unrelated note.  I will find myself in the UK for six days (arriving the evening of Nov 15th).  I've got an open calendar for Sunday - any good wargaming sites to visit in London?????

2 comments:

Samuli said...

Looks like the University courses over there are a lot more fun than the ones I did during my engineering degree :)

Seems like your son is doing extremely well there too. You must be pretty darn proud.

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Miles - re. the visit..

I've heard good things about the newly re-opened/re-developed Imperial war Museum - I hope to go myself this weekend...

Regrettably, the The National Army Museum building at Chelsea is now closed for redevelopment until 2016. Also the display of poppies at the Tower of London will be finished by then as well..

The Warfare show is on in Reading that weekend (http://www.wargamesassociationreading.co.uk/antiquestevefsmailnet-0.html) - Reading is an hour by train from London, it may be more on Sunday, you'd need to check...