"Fly 'em hard and put 'em away wet. They're only drones."
Game of Drones is a new video series focused on designing and creating hardcore airframes that can take punishment. Waterproof, bulletproof & crash-proof are the goals. Pictured here is the "Flying Squirrel" or the Mark III design. With the GoPro camera integrated right in, this is an ideal airframe to learn how to fly in FPV.
Motors mount directly to the material with the "T" bracket...
The rough mold on the vacuum-forming table. The GoPro was a last-minute addition.
A few of the design concepts that will soon be arriving from GoD.
This spherical ring design is strong enough to support 200 lbs. without warping or bending. Now to find motors that can actually lift that weight.
Comments
By the way, for those who want an even cheaper way to vaccum form...use a space saver bag. Saw a video, that I can't find now, where a big bag was used....a piece of plywood, stiff plastic or even cardboard, place form on that, the hot sheet, and finally a towel to cover the hot plastic. Quickly get it in the bag and turn on the vacuum. Seemed to work well for lighter material. I'll be trying 1/16 ABS. Will let you know how it goes.
We have been working with .08 and .06 thickness on the Kydex. The thinner is easier to shape, but the thicker is stronger.
what thickness did you used ?
Awsome project!!! love the simplicity...
And here is a clip of the drone going head-to-head with a traditional quad design:
Here is a how-to video of the initial steps we used on this design. We are still in the dev process, so the information is being re-written all the time...
could you create a manual to how to do this
With proper vents below the motors would the props push air thru and around motor to cool it?
Earl
That looks great, Andrew. Styrene is a good, inexpensive material and it's easy to vacuum form. I find that it's a bit too brittle and breaks easily, but it also can be fixed structurally using nothing but hot glue. Styrene and hot glue are a match made in heaven. Nice touch embedding the motors. We also considered this but were concerned about added heat. Have you have any heat build up?
Here's my quadrocopter. Made of polystyrene.