Drones

Drone It Yourself turns random objects into RC quadrotors

View 7 Images
Jasper van Loenen's Drone It Yourself turns everyday objects into flying quadrotor UAVs (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)
All the kit in a handy flight case (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)
Bicycle wheel as quadrotor (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)
Bicycle wheel as quadrotor (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)
A keyboard is converted into a UAV (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)
Keyboard-drone takes flight (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)
Jasper van Loenen wires up a bicycle wheel (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)
Jasper van Loenen's Drone It Yourself turns everyday objects into flying quadrotor UAVs (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)
View gallery - 7 images

If, like me, you've always felt that your books, record collection and years' of otherwise accumulated matter was lacking flight capability, you might be interested in Jasper van Loenen's Drone It Yourself project which turns more or less anything into a quadrotor drone with addition of a few motors and a control unit.

According to van Loenen, all the plastic parts, which include the clamps to attach the motors, can be 3D printed in ABS, with the appropriate files made available on van Loenen's website. The clamps used may not work with more unusually shaped objects, but there's nothing stopping anyone from designing their own custom variants.

Bicycle wheel as quadrotor (Video still: Jasper van Loenen/Mathijs van Oosterhoudt)

In addition to some nuts and bolts, would-be drone masters will need to track down four motors and propellers (two left- and two right-rotating) as well as all the necessary batteries and electronics. Van Loenen has listed the complete set of a requirements in a handy text file. He suggests that there's no particular reason why you shouldn't deviate from the specific parts mentioned, though clearly the final spec will affect performance including, most crucially, its carrying capacity. A video of the DIY shows a bicycle wheel as a UAV, so van Loenen's prototype isn't without muscle.

Being remote controlled, van Loenen notes that strictly speaking this is a UAV rather than a drone, though we agree you shouldn't let that get in the way of a clever name.

You can see the part 3D-printed DIY in action in the video below. We're all quadrotors now.

Sources: Jasper van Loenen, Instructables via Thing du Jour

View gallery - 7 images
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
9 comments
Paul van Dinther
The craft gets way too heavy with all that weight overhead.
The Skud
Ace! I want to be the 2nd to 'drone' a dead cat! (the 1st has been done for a little while) - Or perhaps a road-kill possum! OR, with soft tape and Velcro 'clamps' how about droning a live cat! Would annoy hell out of the pesky birds or squirrels in my neighbourhood.
ash
bring back the cat ! :)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePNdcdNm9fY
Ricky Hall
Attach your quadcopter to anything. Imagine this scaled up!
Ulrich Duenzl
Anyone for a bank heist
Hala Chaoui
this is great for agriculture. The big deal in agriculture, the sustainable kind, is to not compact the soil with heavy implements or turn the soil toxic with synthetic products. A hovering RC weeding device would get rid of weeds without doing either. This also applies to watering house plants, a hovering watering can! The point of view of an agricultural engineer!
Mzungu_Mkubwa
@Ricky: This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L75ESD9PBOw
... is "this scaled up!" (Meet your next flying car! :-) )
Daishi
@MzunguMkubwa That experiment offers some perspective on just how impossible it would be to add 2 battery powered fans on a skateboard deck and have it work as a hoverboard.
One thing this technology will have a big impact on is amateur photography. There is this intersection of light weight cameras, inexpensive stabilization, and quadcopters that we are starting to run into that is responsible for some breakthroughs in amateur footage like this: http://gizmodo.com/watch-police-shoot-down-a-drone-flying-over-istanbul-513228306
Esi 1976
May be used as a Pizza Delivery! Supposing the order-er doesn't keep the device for himself!