Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » Lego Autopilot Project Update

April 9, 2007

Lego Autopilot Project Update

An update to, The sub-$1,000 UAV Project from Chris Anderson - Lego Autopilot is Working!:

Our summer project is to create a sub-$1,000 UAV as a proof-of-concept for a drone competition for kids. This weekend we passed a major milestone with a successful ground test of the key elements. The video below shows the prototype working.

We’d initially intended to do all the autopilot functions in Lego, but the gyro programming turned out to be beyond our abilities. So we switched to a commercial stabilization unit to keep the plane level and just use the Lego Mindstorms for waypoint navigation.

Very cool.

by curiouscat Tags: Engineering, K-12, Podcast, Products, Robots, Students, Technology
Permalink to: Lego Autopilot Project Update Trackback: http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2007/04/09/lego-autopilot-project-update/trackback/

3 Responses to “Lego Autopilot Project Update”

CuriousCat: Roachbot - Cockroach Controlled Robot Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
“Roaches are gross. Robots are good. But — cockroach-controlled robots?..”
CuriousCat: BlimpBot Foiled by Air Conditioning Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 8:12 am
“The bot worked great in the hotel room, and then we took it the the auditorium during a break to test it on the main stage. Yikes. We were getting IR interference from everything, from LCD screens to the bright stage lights, and our reception range dropped to something around three feet…”
Curious Cat: Babbage Difference Engine In Lego Says:
June 21st, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Before the day of computers and pocket calculators all mathematics was done by hand. Great effort was expended to compose trigonometric and logarithmic tables for navigation, scientific investigation, and engineering purposes…