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The Mikrokopter is a kit you can buy that creates a light (only 500 gm), flying robot with four propellers and a tripod camera mount on top to capture aerial photos in flight. Really cool project for advanced and beginner makers.
Spy on your neighbor with MikroKopter
Posted by Jonah Brucker-Cohen |
Sep 13, 2007 05:00 PM
Flying |
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bought a gadget called XUFO. Same idea, just no camera. Sounded real cool, and was, except there is almost no way to get it to not rotate about its axis. Maybe with tons of practive, but with at most 5 minutes flying time...
What is anyone's experience with this little flying device?
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It's cool, yes. But at a price range of $625 to $1040 USD, I don't plan on getting one any time soon.
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Wow!!
Looks way more stable than my mini toy helicopter when I try to hang a camera from it.
Is it semi autonomous?? It looks like he helps it launch and land but puts the controls down in the middle and it follows him around. It must have altitude detection but I wonder if it has crash detection as well?
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It is not autonomous. It's controlled like a model helicopter. It has sensors onboard to help it remain stable and not crash into the ground (it knows how high it has gone from the 'ground' for example.) so long as you do not wish it to be.
I am constantly amazed at the level of sophistication that people can cobble together with hundreds of hours of time. I bet that if you made this thing out of carbon fiber, some lipoly batteries and a bunch of cameras you'd have yourself a government contract in no time.
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do a google search on quadrocopter and you'll see more community projects like this one.
http://swik.net/User:anushshetty/engadget/Quadrocopter+project+takes+aerial+photography+open+source/56qh
http://www.uavp.de/
As you said.. 600- 1200 $ isn't cheap, but that's comparable to the costs of a plain vanilla RC copter that is not nearly as stable. If you already have RC equipment, your costs will be lower.
and yes, these things use Li-Poly batteries.. I don't think they'd be practical without the high energy density that LiPolyhas.
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