If you like this, then you should have a look at the hexacopter. It is available as a kit from a company in Germany. It has on-board GPS and gyros and is controlled with a basic RC controller. The cost is about $1000. Not cheap but not outrageous either. The big one can handle a payload of up to 1 Kg! Think about the uses!! Cameras, terrifying the neighbor's dog, pizza delivery in minutes no matter what the traffic conditions are . .., Link to the YouTube Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvH2f-AewX8
I wondered if any other/.ers knew about Heathkit. My grandfather worked for Heathkit in the 20's and at one point, was offered a substantial share of the company which he turned down as it was just stock, not money. He knew Edward Heath and he helped build airplanes such as the "Baby Bullet"(http://www.airracinghistory.freeola.com/aircraft/Heath%20Baby%20Bullet.htm), perhaps Heath's most famous plane. His best friend was guy named Roger Lorenzen,(http://ww_heco.home.mindspring.com/wwheco2/hsp_sup2.html) who was perhaps one of the finest wooden propeller makers in the US. They both lived in Niles, Michigan, near Benton Harbor where Heathkit proper began. I have photos of him assembling Heath airplanes at their factory in Chicago.
Ho Hum. Nice article but a bit anticlimactic. These guys are NOT the first to do this. Roslin institute is more than a year behind at least one other company. A good friend of mine, by the name of William MacArthur who is a brilliant Molecular Biologist, founded a company called Geneworks in Ann Arbor, Michigan several years ago with the goal of creating transgenic chickens that do exactly the same thing as the chickens described in the article. He succeeded and more than a year ago had pure-breeding, transgenic chickens. Before anyone else in the world. He had been in regular contact with Amgen, Genentech, and all the "Big Boys" and also received FDA certification. In addition to creating the chickens, he developed a simple and cheap way of extracting whatever protein had been created from the egg. His company had either one or two huge chicken barns in Southeastern Michigan and they just needed a bit more capital to make it "over the hump" and really take off. Ironically enough, none of the big companies would give him the relatively small amount of capital that he needed to continue because, as he explained it to me, their risk assessment programs were all based on drugs manufactured in a drug factory and as such, they had no way to evaluate his new methods, so they wouldn't give him any funding and Geneworks had to shut down in August 2005. I happened to stop in at their offices as they were loading up the equipment and getting ready to auction it off. However some of his transgenic chickens were donated to a university (I don't remember which one) so that the line could continue. By the way the folks at the Roslin institute know who Bill Mac Arthur is and what he was able to do.
Slashdot Mirror
If you like this, then you should have a look at the hexacopter. It is available as a kit from a company in Germany. It has on-board GPS and gyros and is controlled with a basic RC controller. The cost is about $1000. Not cheap but not outrageous either. The big one can handle a payload of up to 1 Kg! Think about the uses!! Cameras, terrifying the neighbor's dog, pizza delivery in minutes no matter what the traffic conditions are . . .,
Link to the YouTube Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvH2f-AewX8
Amen brother. Amen
I wondered if any other /.ers knew about Heathkit. My grandfather worked for Heathkit in the 20's and at one point, was offered a substantial share of the company which he turned down as it was just stock, not money. He knew Edward Heath and he helped build airplanes such as the "Baby Bullet"(http://www.airracinghistory.freeola.com/aircraft/Heath%20Baby%20Bullet.htm), perhaps Heath's most famous plane. His best friend was guy named Roger Lorenzen,(http://ww_heco.home.mindspring.com/wwheco2/hsp_sup2.html) who was perhaps one of the finest wooden propeller makers in the US. They both lived in Niles, Michigan, near Benton Harbor where Heathkit proper began. I have photos of him assembling Heath airplanes at their factory in Chicago.
In case anyone is interested, here is a link to a a relevant page: Human Proteins from transgenic Avians
Ho Hum. Nice article but a bit anticlimactic. These guys are NOT the first to do this. Roslin institute is more than a year behind at least one other company. A good friend of mine, by the name of William MacArthur who is a brilliant Molecular Biologist, founded a company called Geneworks in Ann Arbor, Michigan several years ago with the goal of creating transgenic chickens that do exactly the same thing as the chickens described in the article. He succeeded and more than a year ago had pure-breeding, transgenic chickens. Before anyone else in the world. He had been in regular contact with Amgen, Genentech, and all the "Big Boys" and also received FDA certification. In addition to creating the chickens, he developed a simple and cheap way of extracting whatever protein had been created from the egg. His company had either one or two huge chicken barns in Southeastern Michigan and they just needed a bit more capital to make it "over the hump" and really take off. Ironically enough, none of the big companies would give him the relatively small amount of capital that he needed to continue because, as he explained it to me, their risk assessment programs were all based on drugs manufactured in a drug factory and as such, they had no way to evaluate his new methods, so they wouldn't give him any funding and Geneworks had to shut down in August 2005. I happened to stop in at their offices as they were loading up the equipment and getting ready to auction it off. However some of his transgenic chickens were donated to a university (I don't remember which one) so that the line could continue. By the way the folks at the Roslin institute know who Bill Mac Arthur is and what he was able to do.