Saw this today: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/drone-hunting-colorado-172357477.html

It's interesting that the article leads with a photo of a hexacopter, calls it an octocopter, and the drone bounty being discussed would reward people for turning in "identifiable parts of an unmanned aerial vehicle whose markings and configuration are consistent with those used on any similar craft known to be owned or operated by the United States federal government".  So, presumably it's nothing to do with multi-rotors or hobbyist craft, but that's what they include a photo of?  Sigh.

A number of people have expressed interest in building quads based on mine, and using my software.  In order to help get them set up quickly, I've started working on a real-time diagnostic and setup tool that interacts with my quad flight software.  My flight software looks like it'll be compatible with at least one commercial board (the HoverFly Sport) as we use the same MPU and gyro sensor, so you'll be able to buy their hardware and try my flight controls if you like.

Here's a quick preview of it - the programming is all working, but I have to test all the motor and gyro configurations to make sure I haven't messed anything up before releasing it.

I realize this isn't a new idea, but I figure there are a few people here who will be interested in this when it's ready.

Here's a better video of my latest quad / code. I doubled the maximum angular rates in anticipation of some stunt flying. I probably still have to bump them higher, but I wanted to see how it handled, if it affected stability, and so on. It's just as stable, but much more nimble.

I've done some more work on the stability code in my Propeller-based quadrotor and gotten significantly better flight performance.  It still needs some tuning, but all my oscillation problems are gone.

In the office:

Walking around outside the office:

Here's a look at the latest iteration of my Parallax Propeller based quadrotor.  The current implementation uses an ITG-3200 3-axis gyro as the only stabilization sensor.

...and an outdoor flight: