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Human-powered Helicopter Fails to Lift Off

Posted by michael on from the we've-got-hiiiiiiiiiiigh-hopes dept.

Peter writes "The Human-powered helicopter didn't even get off the ground. A team of University of British Columbia engineering students tried to win the $20,000 US prize offered by the American Helicopter Society. Three metres off the ground and hover for a minute was the challenge. But before the rotors were able to produce enough buoyant force they hit each other. More details: Vancouver Sun."

2 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No pretesting? by Phurd+Phlegm · · Score: 5, Informative
    These were engineering students, and yet no one thought to do the basic physics calculations (like: what is the power required and can a human generate it) before building a prototype. I thought that was what engineering is all about.
    I know it's kind of expected that no one on Slashdot reads the references before pontificating, but this (click on "choosing the final Thunderbird design") seems to indicate they did do the calculations and they did expect a human could produce enough power.

    It appears they were in error, or that there were other things (e.g., stability) that interfered. That's no reason to expect they won't improve the design and get it working, though. I think it's a pretty cool challenge and certainly beats the usual student project of "design another <known thing>".

  2. Re:No pretesting? by Dave_B93 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I was at the attempted liftoff.

    This was the first time that they had the whole thing assembled, and in some ways you could tell. I think some simple resistance based testing would've shown that chain structure was too fragile to propel the wings properly ( either that or the chain was somehow damaged in the first crash where the blades ran into each other.)

    It was also kind of obvious they had never practiced how they were going to start the thing. they had 4 volunteers, (one on the end of each rotor) running around helping the rotors get started. One of the guys on the lower blades was pulling too far down causing the other guy to let go. That is why the blades collided the first time, forget all this not enough lift on the top blade, it was human error.

    The second attempt (after repairing the damage caused by the first attempt). looked more promising, the blades actually seemed to be moving quite well, and in fact the upper blade had started producing enough lift that it looked like there was no danger of hitting the bottom one ( even with human error) , but then they ran into the problems with the chain. Imagine the sound that your bike makes when you're in the wrong gear going up a hill. The skipping noises etc... it sounded just like that.

    I left after the third attempt when the chain just came off. it didnt' look like they were going to get anywhere, and I'd already been there for about 2 hours.

    As for why they'd never practiced with the thing beforehand, I speculate that it is because they didn't know if the thing would survive. If somehow it had gotten off the ground, only to crash after 30 seconds, they would've beaten the record, but wouldn't be able to recreate it. This way they would atleast have witnesses...