Those of you who backed the Robot Dragonfly on Indiegogo back in 2012 may not have received anything yet, but you have had the experience of watching the team learn just how hard it is to make a flapping-wing drone. It's nearly two years late and still a long way to go, but at least they have something sort of flying now.
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Officially failed as of today - it seems
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robot-dragonfly-micro-aerial-veh...
> Trough of disillusionment anyone?
Crowdsourcing drones is currently batting at 0%. At least 4M+ squandered on $0 return. I'd call my post "reality" instead of "disillusionment".
Hi, can anyone tell me what it was they where showing off in their 2012 indiegogo video? wheren't there not "allready" flying prototypes at that time? or where those prototypes hung from strings?
This is a big disappointment for me. Unfortunately.
Also notice, they have not achieved flight yet. There are two propellers at the ends providing the actual lift. At 2:30 in the video you can clearly see them spinning up.
Trough of disillusionment anyone?
Crowd sourcing is mainly a method of pitching overpriced versions of what already exists combined with unrealistic claims of what is possible to deliver in an unrealistic timeframe.
This project failed on the first point, but is entirely in line with the secondary goal. As such, I see no problem with them fleecing suckers to finance their research.
I agree with Charles above, I also think that their campaign was markedly deceptive as to there initial level of accomplishment.
But I also am very happy to see the progress they are making, I think they too grossly underestimated the amount of effort necessary.
Although evolution is decidedly slow it does produce some remarkable outcomes (eg: a dragonfly).
That it might take a few students a while to come up with a suitable analog seems entirely reasonable.
From what I could see the real dragonfly still has it all over them in the sensor and flight controls department.
Cloning the dragonfly brain may prove to be the hard part.
Best,
Gary
I have mixed feeling about that project. It is great that the team got there. On the other hand, without bad intentions, they convinced thousands of people that they were paying for an almost final product while in reality, they were financing a research project. It also reduces public confidence in crowd-sourcing. I was really skeptic when I saw their campaign, it almost looked like a scam with their rendered video, presented as flight footage. It is nice that they are making progress. I really hope they can finish and ship their dragonfly, I will buy one!