Create & Improve

February 21st: 

Today was technically not the first day for building but we had already begun testing materials, Mr. Michie had us draw out our plans for him and we received good feedback, we knew that the rotors would not be able to take much weight, and our main structure had to be stable enough for the motors to not shake while flying. Ultimately, the three of us went with a cardboard Chinook design.

February 23rd: 

We started building today because it is technically the “first day” for building, we picked out 3-6V motors and 6V batteries to test what would work, later we found a YouTube video with the exact same motor and they managed to attach a working propeller to it, all the materials that we need were right there in the design center to use. Using a pen head to secure a metal rod, the only other thing that is required to make it spin would be gears, so we got one smaller one attached to the motor and a larger one for the propeller, we are probably going to do quite a bit of 3D printing and laser cutting for the main body and supports.

February 27th:

It turns out that the little motor propeller thing was harder than we thought, the interior metal rod shakes because it does not perfectly fit into the pen head, and hot gluing the pen head onto the motor was a bad idea because one, the glue might melt, and two, because it moves so much the glue might not be strong enough, so we opted for this super slow drying adhesive (that sticks surprisingly well it’s as good as super glue). We didn’t use super glue because it just would not stick. We ended up finishing 1 propeller and started on the second one, and we are going to 3D print the propeller head, support, and also a little ring to secure the metal rod that spins the propeller. The laser-cutting file for our Chinook main body is also nearly complete.

March 1st:

The 3D-printed stuff and laser-cut cardboard are done, so that’s one less thing to worry about. We started to assemble the main body and kept the top part out so that we could fit in our two finished propellers, turns out that while our design can move, it doesn’t really fly, but it’s so close to flying. We made another set of wooden rotors hoping that it would provide enough air and lift to get us going, and we opted for an external battery system so the weight would be much lighter (180 grams lighter, the propellers were struggling to lift 30). The project is done and here is our finalized product (the side panel will be added later)

Peer feedback:

Mostly everyone – looks cool but can it really fly?

Mr. Michie – Said we should consider how to lessen the weight even more and maybe have better rotor position so that they can “scoop up” more air resulting in more lift

Michael – Recommended that we use stronger batteries because the Chinook can’t really have sustained flight anyways

Someone in the other class (I think it was Jonathan) – Said that we should have used stronger motors that spin much faster and only weigh slightly more (6V), which means that they could take more power.