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Drone Made of Lego Takes Flight
TVmisGuided writes "People have made UAVs out of wood, aluminum, even 3D-printed plastic. But now comes the tale of C#/C++ developer Ed Scott who, after damaging his Gaui 330x, got the idea of designing and building a Lego quadcopter. And it worked! 'Most people go to their favorite hobby store to get parts for their UAV, I go to my kid's playroom.'"
Last millenium weq had RC planes and shit. Why call them drones now? Is that to give legitimacy to extrajudicial killings, or is it to derive coolness from them? It's one thing or the other, that's for fucking sure, so tell me. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is such a needy and funny thing to call it... you mean like a paper airplane? Or a helium balloon? WTF people. Oh, and this is bad enough without dragging your kid into it, btw. Just a thought. Now do your butthurt thingy where you mod me down as flamebait or troll, you know you wanna ^^
Thats nothing. I worked on a project where we used lego mindstorm to guide a laser for lasik.
Duurrrrrr, unlike those other people that made things out of other things, I made this thing out of Lego. See, completely different and newsworthy. It's not like I built a car out of steel then made a slightly different car out of carbon fiber. I took it another step. I used another thing for the thing instead. Get it? I used one thing in a place where you would not think the thing would be.
The website is a UAV/UAS enthusiasts website, so of course they're going to use the terminology of UAVs. As for the drone part, it was only in the headline so an editor or sub-editor chose it. You know, an editor from a group of DRONE ENTHUSIASTS. So I think that you've answered your own question, it's to derive coolness from them. These are people with a hobby that may seem esoteric and uninteresting to many but they like to think that what they do is cool, just like any other sort of geek. Same as a tabletop RPG geek would normally say a "D20" instead of a "20 sided dice". You appear to see something wrong with that, maybe the problem is not with this article but instead with your perception of it.
"Daaaaaaad, stop taking my legos!!!"
"Sorry champ, Daddy has dreams."
make millions selling it as a Harry Potter toy. Then use the Arducopter he already has setup to fly to their friends' houses. Hell, you could trade 128-bit friend codes so that it automatically allows friends to download their "home" GPS position, just leave it out at night so that it can deliver the messages.
The G
... as far as I can see, the only thing Lego in this quadcopter is the plastic structure. Motors are not, batteries are not, control electronics are not, RF and presumably remote control are not, servomotors are not.
So are we discussing a "drone using some lego bricks for the structure"?
H.
now mod me down, but remember I'm 50: at home I have older bricks than you (in addition to the vast amount aggregated by three sons)
Herve S.
He's not even using all Lego parts. And yes, there are indeed Lego propellors out there capable of generating propulsive thrust. And yes, you can even use an NXT smart brick to control a UAV.
But, worst of all it looks like he's committed one of deadliest Lego sins: irreversible modification of Lego bricks. How else are those motors staying on there?
Ah, but he did it using a computer ! Totally different thing !
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
The true lego propellers I've seen would never be able to produce any thrust. The NXT + motors would be too heavy for it to fly, too.
Don't get me wrong, it'd be massively cool, but just sounds unfeasible using all Lego.
Okay, but that's why a Lego copter would have been impressive. Because we think it's impossible. Building a copter with a few Lego parts is nice, I guess but not as impressive as the article suggests.
Because it's female?
Why is his doing something like this with his grandkids pretty lame? Seriously - he wasn't doing it for your approval and for you to be insulting to him (its not like he asked to be on slashdot) is a bit rude. What emotion inside you drove you to make that comment?
I applaud his work with his grandkids..
"Most people go to their favorite hobby store to get parts for their UAV, I go to my kids playroom."
Dick.
The goal of the project was to build a quadcopter with low-cost replaceable parts. If you have a one piece wood or carbonfibre chassis, and something breaks, that's the whole chassis needing replacing. If the quadcopter is made from modular parts, that's a bit better, but you would still need to purchase custom replacement parts if they break. Build the quadcopter chassis out of RV parts and regular bricks, you can buy a bucket of them for $50.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I think there is an old McDonald's TV commercial where a boy drives a R/C car alone into the restaurant, with a piece of cardboard that has his order written on.
My granddad used to build stuff for me and repair bikes and such. Doing cool stuff with your grandkids while you still can. I guess some people don't have nice granddads and can only say "lame" all the time. Pretty lame.
It wasn't a comment on what he does with his grandkids. That's great and all that.
It was a comment on this being newsworthy, when the application of Lego was quite underwhelming.
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
Hi everyone, I am the dad in the video, I want to clear a couple things. !) It’s just an RC plane (Jonathan) Yes, in the beginning it 100% WAS but its not now, well more of a UAV than simple RC because of the FPV. Then about mid way we added the Arducoptor controller. Uploaded waypoints and it flew 100% on its own using a Mediatech GPS through 3 waypoints and back home so yes it’s a true drone now. It also can land on its own but right now it’s such a hard landing it broke the legs that’s why you see the blue tape in the back of one of the legs. It does take off on its own, but you must throw the throttle up a little to start it for safety. Once the stick is thrown even a little it takes up on its own, I asked my son to go a little over half way in case that something went wrong and I had to take manual control. A little over half way would guarantee that it’s still ascending and not crashing to earth. It is fully autonomous. 2) Its not 100% LEGOs. Well no, it not at all, and if you read the description on the YouTube you see I stated 100% LEGO Frame, that’s all. Mainly wanted to build a cheap strong frame with my kids. And I did and it was fun. 3) I used a CAD....um no, its LDD, LEGO Digital Designer, I guess its a kiddie CAD made by LEGO but its not AutoCad and actually the kids use it more than me. My son’s involvement was 100% build and about 100% helping with design of frame. Also oldest helped configure waypoints and flight plan. This is the autopilot system I used http://store.diydrones.com/APM_2_5_Assembled_p/br-apmpwrkt.htm You can get LDD here http://ldd.lego.com/ Hope this helps the confusion.
The reason why we used the Lego Digital Designer (LDD) was used was to teach my kids how to use a CAD. Remember this is a Kiddie Cad and these are 7-11 year olds. I am actually an AutoCad registered developer and I wanted to teach my kids some things. The LDD also lets us order the exact right amount of bricks and colors, it also creates an excel spread sheet. The kids learned a lot even what excel can do on a basic level/ People please look at this from a kids learning perspective not an adult, this project was never meant for a 35 year old. It was to teach my kids a new technology and an introduction from start to finish in robotics and flight. Again, it is 100% autonomous.
We have a bunch of corporate drones ruining...er...I mean running this sector of the planet.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
There is a plane with a mindstorm controller, its pretty cool
Last millenium weq had RC planes and shit. Why call them drones now?
I use drones, you can call them RC planes or model planes (as we do in Australia), I wont get upset.
To me the difference is a drone is autonomous whilst an RC plane requires continuous input from a remote pilot.
With our drone, we program it with a flight path and parameters and it does it's thing with little or no input from the user. We do manual take off and landings via remote but once it reaches the starting co-ords we flip it into automatic mode. The biggest usage we have for them is to take aerial photo's we can program them with the co-ords for each photo and let it's do it's thing. We used to use expensive manned planes and helicopters for this (Australian rules requires any externally fixed device to be certified by aircraft engineers, which is bloody expensive so putting the same camera inside a model plane designed for it is a lot cheaper), the drone is surprisingly accurate in comparison.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If the Lego quad interests you, you might want to check out V929, V939, V949, or V959. These toy grade quadcopters are dirt cheap. You can get one online for less than 50 bucks and they fly really well.
w00t
Here is another example of it running the waypoints without the controller. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx-Qz7eXAyk Maybe you should take 5 min and look at the DIY Drones http://diydrones.com/ and see how many people are making Drones that actually fly themselves, not just simple RC controlled planes, these things fly themselves, take off and land themselves based on preprogrammed waypoints. Call it a drone, autopilot flying machines or whatever. These also log full telemetry about the flight too that can be played back on google earth, there not your fathers RC planes anymore. Hope that helps your understanding of an RC plane and todays modern drone for the consumer.