On Wednesday April 6th, Barcelona-based BonaDrone is launching a crowdfunding campaign to bring the world’s first 3D-printed, customizable, and modular drone to the consumer market. Alongside 3D-printed merchandise and drone accessories, backers have the chance to pre-order BonaDrone’s Mosquito drone, which the company expects to start shipping in September this year.
After years in development, the Mosquito is a drone ready to offer a different way of doing things. Users can choose the color and accessories of their Mosquito, as well as having the opportunity to upgrade the material used before building their own drone from scratch out of 3D-printed parts. This customizable approach means that every user, from tech-lovers to engineering, DIY, and RC enthusiasts, can have a unique drone.
The Mosquito also comes with several autonomous flight features built-in, including a Follow-Me function, flight planning, and a Return-to-Launch capability in case of an emergency.
Full customization is just the beginning. Ready to go, BonaDrone has designed and tested two accessories users can purchase with their drone - a gimbal to attach a camera for stable video photography, and a hook for transporting objects with ease. Further down the road BonaDrone will ask users to suggest new accessories and functionalities for the Mosquito, which will then be designed and made available to the community.
For the launch of its IndieGoGo campaign, BonaDrone has partnered with 3D Hubs, the largest and fastest growing network of 3D printers. The team at BonaDrone team is made up of five friends from Barcelona, Spain. In a statement before the launch of their IndieGoGo campaign, Josep, Jordi, Àlex, Dani and Pep said:
“We hope that our project will get a great reception, and see this campaign as a fantastic opportunity to spread the word about drones and 3D-printing, both inside and outside of the technology community. The aim is to give our users the tools and the knowledge to self-meet their drone expectations. We are also keen to receive feedback on our Mosquito drone, develop new products and accessories, and inspire creativity within the community we hope to create.”
BonaDrone was founded with the aim of bringing technology closer to the end user. The company hopes to promote both creativity and an interest in learning about how their technology all fits together. In a sea of tech startups looking for investment, BonaDrone stands out as a unique option for those keen to support an innovative project that brings together two of the most exciting tech trends in recent years: Drones & 3D Printing.
Comments
About the in depth research the journalists made, I don't know if there are well informed :
"This means that if an aerial photographer needs a lightweight carbon-fiber drone with a fitted camera gimbal, it can be done. Similarly, if a customer needs a powerful 8-rotor industrial drone with a carrying hook, this can be produced by the Bonadrone team with ease."
I was not aware of a 3D printed carbon fiber version, or of a powerful 8-rotors industrial drone.
"The result is the Mosquito, the world's first 3D printed UAV, or drone."
Really the first ?
http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2881490
Great comments analysis on this thread, but let us not forget the journalists who covered this story and the in depth research they had to undertake.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=bonadrone&tbm=nws
@BonaDrone
As has been said, you can customize some RTF quads. But regardless, the way I see your product - and the way I interpret your words - is that this is for someone (like me) that wants to enter the DIY world without a big learning barrier. I think that's why you have assembly manuals and even sell an already assembled version. The problem is if you make the price higher than the cost of learning - which I think you do big time.
And looking at some competition, for example, your fellow citizens of Erle, with the Erle-Copter, their price is about the same as yours and they include a more advanced and recent autopilot than yours. And they are a known company here, they already contribute to Ardupilot development, etc. But I still find their price high which is why I haven't bought one.
Also if you really intend to make more modules, upgrades, etc., then you should have a lower barrier to enter your company world and try to make some more money in the accessories.
So if you want a feedback about the campaign (not only about the Mosquito), sorry if it's a bit harsh but I try to be honest :
1) Looks like a typical campain video, with a lot of clichés, not bad but is like a copy paste of many other campains. Maybe it's just the music that's not very inspiring. But for Spain I would expect to see a lot of sun, lots of fun, filming at the sea and such. More happy faces !
2) About the film 'scenario' I would skip the 'marry me' part, because it's a little scary... I hope nobody ever married a geek who's hiding behind a drone because he dropped a ring on her head from 10 meters high ;) just joking
3) If it's presented as '3D printed', it would be expected that anyone can 3D print it at home. Here it's just 3D printed at the factory, so that's not really an advantage, maybe just for the production price.
4) Regarding modularity, it's limited to attaching either a gimbal, or the marry me kit. Well, in the video it seems that it has at the same time the gopro and the MMK ? As it's 3D printed I would expect a lot of modules that can be assembled in different ways, protections for the propellers, different landing gears that are out of the camera's FOV, additional RGB LEDs, a box for additional batteries or equipments, a beer holder, a speaker with pre-recorded message ("I'm leaving you") etc. Maybe the drone could be available in different sizes, just that would be a cool addition.
5) For the price, I understand perfectly that you can't compete with Dji, but then the whole concept seems difficult to sell. If it was really modular, with many assembly options, maybe it could find specific uses. But it's too much similar to every other drone, but it's not too late to add some modules, or find something that will really make it apart from the other drones.
OK guys, I hope you'll find some constructive ideas in this feedback, anyway congrats for the time you've spent to build this and the video, and don't get discouraged, as said Edison : "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
All the best !
Ben
BonaDrone - Of course you can't compete with DJI in terms of price. You can't catch a cloud and pin it down or hold a moonbeam in your hand either... but no one was suggesting you were or could other than the ridiculous prices you are asking. I used the DJI Phantom 3 Standard as an example of what the type of money you are asking can buy so to illustrate the absurdity of what you are offering. You may not be intending to compete with DJI but, with the price of an assembled Mosquito and Gimbal Gadget coming in just shy of the price of a Phantom 3 Pro (and with the Mosquito actually costing more once you add the GoPro), you can't be surprised by the comparison.
Providing one Mosquito to each member of a 30 child classroom would cost more than the annual wage of the teacher (not to mention the additional cost of 30 GoPros). And for what exactly? $200USD worth of parts and an ikea style assembly manual? Sure design and build manuals take time and you want to recover that, but the Mosquito is way too heavy on margin and far too lite on value. Where is the educational value anyway? Does your manual provide an introduction to code? Perhaps it helps to explain how PIDs work? Maybe it touches on what PWM is? Ohm's Law? Anything like that? At all?
Customising (or what you call customizing) a Phantom is easy. There is a huge range of sticker sets available thanks to it's immense popularity. Pink, blue, camo, graffiti, carbon fibre, your favorite footy team... fancy props, taller landing gear, retracts... whatever you want really. I also found that the Phantom is actually quite repairable and customisable when I was given a Phantom 2 V2 which had apparently "flown away" on it's previous owner. I restored the craft (good clean, new shell, new stickers), swapped out the old GPS to a more reliable M8N unit to protect against a repeat runaway, switched out the factory receiver for an X4R-SB so it would talk to my Taranis, added a camera and VTX for live view, used a minimosd to listen to the Naza and display flight data on my video while also outputting mavlink to a teensy, which was used to convert from mavlink to frsky s.port protocol and feed telemetry information back to the Taranis. I had never played around with a DJI or Naza product before this and I learned heaps in the process. This craft is a good little workhorse that now flies where it is too risky to put up my P3P. It also lifts remote flash units and provides plenty of LOS and FPV training for my friends and family. Thinking about it... the Phantom 2 is actually still available, and.... with H4-3D Zenmuse + free shipping + a new M8N GPS + an X4R-SB + a Taranis + a spare battery also comes out significantly cheaper than the Mosquito.
What did you say? You include the cost of shipping in your asking price? Oh, well, that really changes everything. I take back everything I said.
APM 2.6 w/ telemetry radios, 4 & B/L motors, Turnigy multistar 5200 LiPo & Turnigy charger, printed quad frame, gimbal (or hook), plus Turnigy 9X radio.
Does that add up to $ 1700US ?
All you said is easily solvable buying the 3DR Solo. So asking so much for 3d printed quad is just fraudient
Or you can buy DJI Flywheel and customize it any way you want
Hi Quadzimodo and Francisco,
Well, yes, there are cheaper options on the market but we really cannot compete with DJI in price terms. But the concept of BonaDrone is much more than fly. We're not working to challenge vs Phantom because it's impossible.
We're working to give a different concept about drones to the people. How you can customize a Phantom? How you can repair it easily? and the most important how you can decide the utility of your drone?
For us, the drones are not only to fly.
Maybe it's expensive if you only take in account the product. But you should take in account the all concept and we include the shipping in the price.
Thanks for your feedback guys.
Yeah, I was just going to tweet you what Quadzimodo said.
It already wasn't good that your site had a wrong countdown (I was waiting to see the prices), but these prices are absolutely insane. I was expecting that it wouldn't be cheap, but I would never expect them to be this high. At half the price it wouldn't be cheap, let alone this.
I hope you achieve your goals but I honestly don't see how.
Waaaaay too expensive guys. It isn't 2014 anymore.
Sure the Mosquito is education and customisable... but you can buy a Ready To Fly Phantom 3 standard for much less than a Mosquito, no need to build it or shell out for the additional expense of a gopro either. I guess I am not telling you anything you don't already know though.
Good luck with your campaign.
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