MikroKopter - HexaKopter from Holger Buss on Vimeo.
Here is a nice demo video of MikroKotper’s new HexaKopter. Lists at around $1500 which is pretty good considering it’s capabilities. 1Kg is a lot of payload. I’d love to see some numbers on loiter times but overall this looks like a fantastic platform for photography or whatever else. I may just have to get one.
This seems to be the next iteration of Berkeley’s cutout robot. I think the most interesting part about this concept are the build process and materials. Every time I see something like this I am reminded that I REALLY WANT a laser cutter :).
Here is a really cool demonstration of soft body robotics and locomotion using “jamming”. As far as I can see they use a balloon filled with sand (kind of like those stress balls) and then suck the air out of it to make it maintain a more rigid shape. This seems like it would be fairly easy to replicate cheaply.
I’m a big fan hardware projects and have recently been playing around with a couple of Digi XBee pro modules for a UAV controller. Anyway I came across Travis Goodspeed’s blog post explaining a method for extracting keys from certain ZigBee chipsets. I won’t ruin the surprise for everyone so go on over to and check it out.
I remember seeing a demo of a delta robot a while ago and being very impressed. I have seen them used on assembly lines to quickly sort and organise objects but there are loads of other applications. I know of one company that uses a delta design for a tactile feedback capable interface device. I wonder if this sort of device would be good for routing/drilling/cnc type work? If you are interested in the maths behind this sort of design you can check out this pdf.
via Hackaday
The folks over at InventGeek just released the plans and tutorial videos for making a paintball turret with pan (I think) and tilt. I really like these sorts of projects. They deal with a lot of the problems one would deal with when making a real gun turret…plus they are just fun to watch.
Via Hackaday
This is a cool project that aims to be a “universal remote” for those cheap IR controlled toy helicopters.The same group is also working on a visual tracking system as well. The main problem with IR is that you are basically limited to line of sight. Even with that limitation the systems could be used for small scale simulations etc. Kind of a poor man’s version of MIT’s SWARM environment.
Via HackADay
This is kind of a goofy video at first glance but when you think about it it is pretty cool. This guy rigged up his Easystar based UAV with a FPV camera and some model rockets and fireworks. It looks like great fun, flying around and shooting rockets but scale this up a little bit and you could really do some damage.
Via Hack A Day
Strobit is a neat open source project from strobotics creating a small cheap Arduino based wireless widget. They are creating “personalities” which look like different sets of functionality. It looks like they are working on mesh networking and solar power which would make this a great candidate for the Short Hop Messenger project.
Tags: Arduino
As rapid prototyping /3d printing and DIY continue to converge we are going to see more and more of this sort of thing. I did some digging and found his list of parts but none of them are printable by others at the moment. He also has a forum at Shapeways detailing the build and a link to a video of it flying. OpenWarfare should definitely try to get an open source version of this project together.
Via DIYDrones
