At the end of our junior year of high school, we decided that we wanted to build a robot. Originally we were going to build a line-following robot which is what we told the school in our capstone project proposal. We have had some difficulty committing to an idea though, as we imagined building everything from transforming to drawing to stair climbing robots. Four weeks ago, we finally settled on building a quadrocopter because they can fly, would require us to learn a lot (remote communication, programming, aerodynamics etc.), are simple enough to build in a semester, can be enhanced with sensors, cameras, and flashy lights, and did I mention they can fly?
This blog is the log of our experience building and enhancing the quadrocopter. We will try to be as detailed as possible. If there is anything you do not understand though, feel welcome to email us questions as at rearingrobots@gmail.com. Or you could just send us a "hello." Neither of us have kept a blog before, so any advice or critique you might have would be useful to hear. No matter the subject matter, it is nice to receive emails from blog visitors.
We decided to share our robot building escapade in hopes that someone out there will be inspired to build or explore robotics and beyond. To quote the wise words of Dr. Suess:
And this is the beginning of our story of the places we'll go. Our preferred method of travel: flight. While we were looking for ideas and guides all over the interwebs on building quadrocopters, we stumbled across Daniel Gonzalez's Yet Another Mechanical Engineering Blog (YAMEB). He has a detailed guide to assembling a quadrocopter around the size we want (small enough to be flown around in the school) and sourced all of the parts. The parts we ordered are mostly the same as listed on Daniel's blog. Here is the list:"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."
- MultiWii 328P Flight Controller w/FTDI & DSM2 Port
- Four Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 - 2826-1130kv Brushless Outrunner Motor
- ZIPPY Compact 1800mAh 3S 25C Lipo Pack (Battery)
- Turnigy balancer & [Battery] Charger 2S-3S
- Five 8X4R Propellers (Standard and Counter Rotating) (6pc)
- Four Turnigy Multistar 15 Amp Multi-rotor Brushless ESC 2-3S (speed controller)
- Hobby King Quadcopter Power Distribution Board
- XBee Wireless Series 1 Starter Kit
- NEEWER® Useful HJ MWC X-Mode Alien Multicopter Quadcopter Frame Kit Red/White
The frame we bought from Amazon is a different version of the frame that Daniel suggested, because the one he used was out of stock everywhere.
This post is a bit late. We have already gotten all of the parts and put much of them together. It's hard to pull away from the robot and write about it, but we'll be posting more about all the parts and electronics soon.
