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This is a UAV made of 4 buzzing motors, 4 springs or
foam
arms and 4 bird
feathers, all from the same side of the bird so that they
will all
be
either right or left handed.
The buzzing motors are the same kind that drive those
little
toothbrush heads in robot kits, but could be scaled
to be
more
powerful, and each can be controlled
individually by a balancing software.
The buzzing motors move in a toroidal loop, a motion
which the
foam arms will adaptively translate to the feathers to
move
them in the same figure 8 motions that birds use in
flight,
wasting no energy.
The result is 4 feathers positioned at the points of a
tetrahedral
shape and connected by a four armed foam or spring tree
with
a motor block at the center.
A tetrahedral flapping drone.
This vehicle also might incorporate heavy gyroscopes that
store energy, not just for navigation, and leverage.
So the foam arms could be articulated once, with an
elbow close to the engine block, so that the elbow would
store energy and adaptively translate it to the longer
part of the arm, at the end of which would be the
feathers.
[link]
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Are you and [beany] having a race? |
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Anyway, I didn't understand the bit that says //The buzzing motors move in a toroidal loop, a motion which the foam arms will adaptively translate to the feathers to move them in the same figure 8 motions//. What's a toroidal loop, and how does that get translated into a figure 8 motion? |
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I was thinking that it was like a 3D figure 8, or like a
planetary orbit or a trefoil knot. I was thinking that the
center of mass of a motor moves in an orbit and that
energy can be stored and distributed. |
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// What's a toroidal loop, // |
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//and how does that get translated into a figure 8 motion? // |
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// I was thinking that it was like a 3D figure 8, // |
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// or like a planetary orbit // |
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.... which is an ellipse ... |
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... which cannot be mapped onto a closed path. |
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// I was thinking that the center of mass of a motor moves in an orbit // |
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It conforms to Kepler's Law ? No, it rotates around a fixed axis. That's an entirely different type of (constrained) motion. |
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// and that energy can be stored and distributed. // |
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Two hummingbirds, with that hummingbird wing motion thing, both simultaneously grasping the same piece of chocolate from the MWI candy bar contest |
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The words make sense individually, but not when you put them in this particular order.
It might be a good idea, buried in there somewhere.
I'm going to need a sketch (or a model) if I'm to make head or tail of this.
On the other hand, you might need to take either more drugs, or not so many... |
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Maybe this would work better if the individual engines were
further down each arm rather than at the center. I guess
you could tune it. |
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The problem with this idea is that a tetrahedron has too many edges and corners. Somebody once told me that edges and corners were bad. |
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The feathers are positioned at four points in space that
form a tetrahedron but there isnt any thing structurally
along the edges. I think the easiest way to do it is to have
four springs attaced at a central weight and at the end of
each spring a feather. I think it would work best if the
wobble motors are positioned along the springs somewhere.
I guess you could tune it by moving the engines, but you
could do that with software too. |
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None of these work right now because... I dont have the
weights / tension / dimensions right, thus the awesomely
bad first and second flights, but the concepts are there, I
know because I have been winging these objects around
my body as I walk and I can feel that they are capable of
holding their own weight if they were set to resonate by
a motor. These objects follow a figure 8 path around your
body if you walk with them and hold them loosely. The
concepts are the same in all of them. I use springs,
resonance, weights that move back and forth at a similar
frequency to one at which the arms with feathers at the
end of them vibrate, roll foam into 3D shapes based on
the way the template is shaped, and use tactile
interfaces like sculpey coverd handles, tapered duct tape
funnels with the sticky part on the outside, and duct tape
weaving. Each object works because the material
gyroscopes around itself. So you can incorporate those
hand gyros too, but the springs act a gyroscopes if you
taper them from a loose coil to a tight coil. The tight
knot stores energy and then distributes it incrementally
with the resonance. |
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If you have four feathers, all performing similar motion, and arranged in a tetrahedron, the net lift will be zero, shirley? |
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No because the up feather becomes the axis so it doesnt
cover any area with each flap. The other three move just
like
a birds wing pushing up. |
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If a bird's wings pushed up, the net downward force would
merely assist it in staying on the ground, shirley ? |
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I will wager [8th]'s Hornby train set that it doesn't work. |
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I will see your train set and raise you one future. |
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As an initial feasibility study, can I suggest you glue two hummingbirds together at the appropriate angle, and test their combined airworthiness? |
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It would be better gluing two cats together. Here's $20, go buy yourself a cartload of glue. |
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[MB], you keep your thieving mitts off our train set. That's NOT negotiable ... |
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It's not theiving, it's a simple wager. |
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<starts hiding favourite locos in obscure places in Cube> |
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"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our Ivatt Class C1 Atlantic !" |
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Indeed, it's (sp.) thieving. |
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Damn. That "i before e" thing always catches me out. I blame a lifetime working on proteins and nucleic acids - thier spelling is messed up. |
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I have been pondering this. I think the toothbrush motors are little offset motors. Could they produce enough tork to flap a foam appendage? |
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If you wring your hands gently together while you are
plotting and scheming to overthrow the world, and you
are wearing a bendy wing, then let the nervous, conniving
sweat dry on your fingertips just enough and yogically
dance/shake your whole body in adaption to the structure
of the bendy wing, and the frequency of the vibration of
your fingertips on the outside of your hands will vary with
a rising a falling pitch that sings in accordance to the
emotional resonance of your electrical field. |
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[JHC], have you considered becoming a faecal transplant donor? |
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I am amalgamating a collection of the most incredible
stomach bacteria in the world by putting myself in the
most awesome situations in the world over and over again
until I have accumulated a star menagerie of stomach
guys so that I can give my feces away for free to everyone
via the public library. |
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Sounds more like a book depository ... |
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//by putting myself in the most awesome situations in the world over and over again // Have you considered venturing outside the USA in persuivance of this goal? The French, for example, have quite a remarkable collection of bacteria. Or does your passport still have that UV ink-mark? |
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I've been to France a couple of times but only had espresso.
Baguettes and pig in a can. It wasn't the bacteria fest you
would think. Otherwise I'm kind of like the guy from
Perfume by Patrick Suskind, except I collect the chemistry
on the inside of my body rather than outside in perfume
bottles, by taste rather than smell, by just licking
everything I find pleasing. |
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That kind of behaviour can get you thrown out of the Brownies. |
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