Hello to East Bay Makers!

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, here's some details on what I'm bringing to the East Bay Maker Faire.

Arcticopter VI.  This is what I'll be demo'ing with Chris.  Here's a picture of it when it was the Arcticopter IV, two upgrades ago.  It's got an ArduPilot Mega 2.5 autopilot board, and RadicalRC mounts.  Everything else is homemade, in case it's not obvious.

The Arctibaby.  I built this model because I wanted something small I could fly indoors.  I've flown the Arcticopter indoors but it's a bit too loud and definitely non-friendly to lighting fixtures.  It's mostly kit built with custom reinforced arms.  It's currently got a MultiWii controller, but I've flown it with the APM, making it the smallest ArduCopter frame I know of.

The Walkera LadyBird.  This is totally store-bought, but it's a dream... small, agile, relatively inexpensive, and totally cute!  Everyone that tries one really likes it.

Ritewing Zephyr II.  This is a popular flying wing.  The ArduPilot makes it much easier to fly when using it for aerial photography.

EZ-Fly.  This is home-built out of sheet foam insulation, a popular building material these days.  It's from a design posted on rcgroups.com.  The RC community has a long tradition of sharing designs, DIY, assistance, and other Maker-isms that make it a nice group of people to build things with.  Video here.




Interested in learning more about what we're doing, and what exactly "drone hobbyist" means?  We've gotten some good coverage by the likes of NPR and the Wall Street Journal.  I'm happy to say that the reporters understood what we were trying to accomplish and did a great job putting together their stories.  There's some links here.

Want to learn more? The DIY Drones site is here.  I fly with the excellent fellows of the  Concord Model Engineers.  They've been around a while -- our most senior member started aeromodelling in 1938!

I've been contemplating an Intro to RC class.  Does that sound like a good idea?  Drop me a line and let me know at marhar@gmail.com.  Likewise if you're into... Drop me a note and say hello!