When/where: 9:00 am MST Sparkfun.com

What: Win $100 of a total $200,000 giveaway

"Well the time is near - tomorrow at 9 AM Mountain Time, SparkFun is hosting the third edition of Free Day. This year we are giving away $200,000 worth of $100 credits to the SparkFun…

Hey everyone,

NASA has just unveiled there Vehicle Sketch Pad open source product. I don't know how many designers there are out on diydrones but this should be fun to play with for anyone interested in flying things.  http://www.openvsp.org/

Cheers

Motor: Turnigy G10 810kv

(http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=19020)



ESC:…

Hi again. Latelly I've been testing some different propellers on my quad and checking the main differences between them. For my emax gt 2218 930kv , my 3S batt and the 1500 / 1600 weight, I was using those cheap 12x4.5 props. I even bought 12 pairs for $25 or so, and one thing I can tell you about them... FORGET ABOUT IT. After 2 crashes from wich I could not tell if it was a motor or prop problem, I decided to test other props. I started thinking that too much flexibility would have a…

 Very interesting set of YouTube videos of representatives from the AMA and FAA discussing UAVs, Altitude Limits, etc.

 #1: (above)

#2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5nUG0RhSwY&sns=em

#3:…

So after much reading and research into the whole "backup" BEC saga. I think I've found a solution!



My first idea was just to run a 5.5v backup lipo in parallel with the 5v UBEC output.

This idea has been vitoed by most. Too many unknowns apparently.

The other was to parallel all the BECs up, but this would cause harmonics due to all the…

If by "Stormy" you mean "Somewhat Cloudy", and by "Sea" you mean "San Francisco Bay"...

Radio contact lost, Zephyr II with APM flies to points unknown, rescued with APM and most other electronics functioning.

Full story and pics:…

TiDiGino is a new open source Arduino-based (ATmega2560) GSM remote control module.  From open-electronics via dangerous…

Hi All,

Not sure how many have seen these news, but here it is!

http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2012/01/09/introducing-the-makerbot-replicator/

let the quadcopter frame building begin...um....I mean printed? …

More coolness from the Vicon motion capture room of U Penn's GRASP Lab. Quads work together to assemble a structure faster. 

(viaengadget)

I've had a lot of questions recently about the USA trip I'm planning, and thought I'd provide some additional details about what plane, FPV, AP, RTH, etc system I'll be using for the journey.

Basically, I'm planning on scratch building a twin engine airplane with a 6 -7 ft. wing span. It will fly at 60 - 80 MPH for as long as possible (hope to get an hour or more at that speed). I'll land it, replace the batteries, service the airplane, and…

This continues to move forward.  Decided attitude sensing is required for what we need.



After some complicated math problems, finally derived an empirical method for determining attitude from video.  It most definitely isn't…

At CES today, Parrot announced the latest updates to its AR.Drone. The most interesting bits are higher resolution video and an onboard baro sensor that will allow it to fly higher than sonar range outside. The phone/tablet app also has a better FPV mode. 

Here's the full text of the…

Well, I decided to start seriously designing and building my quad-copter frame.  I recently build a CNC laser and can use that to cut all the parts I need for the frame.  I plan to use polycarbonate because it is strong, tough, and fairly light.  I've been exploring ultra light design principles.  The idea is that you can use very thin materials to make truss structures that may be quite flexible out of the truss plane but you add enough trusses in the out of plane direction to stiffen up…

The DJI WK-M Multi-Rotor controller has had a firmware update over the weekend, the guys at Wookong headquarters added the “Care Free” mode in this latest update…

Its no wonder AV have been making lots of noise in the press about UAS in the NAS soon.

Their man has just been put in charge of the ASTM F-38 committee.

The rules might well be changing and it would seem almost certain that military standards will form the backbone. Best dust off your STANAGs…

Thanks to hobbyking for sending POS prop spinners with 8mm prop shafts!

Below are custom ones turned from solid aluminium.

Much stronger and with tighter tolerances. Also I decided to thread the shaft (as in video) and props,

so the props thread on :)

Gonna do some prop thrust test tomorrow.…

As is customary and traditional, we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 21,000!

There were more than 1.23m page views this month, which is a record. It just took us four weeks to get this latest 1,000 members--we're averaging about one new member every 43…

Since I've had such problems with buying a brushless in-runner, I've got brushless outrunner instaed.

To mount it in the plane, I've used motor mount (that was a problem to find in my country too) from the twinstar,

slightly modified.

Pictures will tell the story.…

Hi all,

MatrixPilot quad_testing code begins to be funny to fly :)

In the video you can see a flight with the code at r1158. It is very stable and reliable. Controls are very smooth.

The quadrocopter is an…