Today I spotted this "Digital Addressable RGB LED with PWM waterproof flexi strip" from Adafruit.

Each LED in this strip is individually addressable, meaning you can set the…

hi friends, whenever we fly in automode using APM there is always some chance of a bad crash. we do lose some expensive equipment. APM is quite expensive for almost $400 and not counting the mid night hours that go in debugging. so i have worked on a aluminum APM housing which is quite strong with 1.5mm thickness and is…

One of the cool things about the 3D Robotics factory in San Diego is that it's near the Naval air station and there are a load of cool military aircraft flying by all the time. Today, the Blue Angels were practicing while the 3D Robotics team was testing some new ArduCopter hardware. 

(via 3D Robotics…

One of the biggest challenges in an open source development project is getting the "architecture of participation" right. Like a great game, contributing should be easy to pick up but hard to master, giving people of all skills and experience an opportunity to engage. Right now we have scores of developers working…

The 3D Robotics PhoneDrone Android/RC interface board is finally in production! Pre-orders are starting now and it will ship on Oct 17th. From the product listing:

It's a way to connect any…

APM Mission Planner is adding more support for the AttoPilot Voltage Sensor. Thus the Open Hardware Store has introduced a voltage sensor kit that is ready to be used and you just need to plug it in and configure Ardupilot. It comes with XT60-connectors and a 15cm long servo cable to connect to the…

It looks to me that the sad day we all knew would eventually come has arrived. The first person that I have heard of plotting to use R/C planes to bomb the Pentagon and the Capital building. It appears he was planning to use some kind of autopilot given that they stated the plane was to be "GPS guided". Below is a link to the CNN page that has the details. I only hope this doesn't lead to a complete lock down of the R/C and sUAS industry. It is so young and ripe for growth…

Hi guys, I just wanted to share some photos of my minimalist ArduCopter 3DR. The APM is using Jason Short's power hack, a Spektrum adapter, and a DSM2 remote Rx. the OilPan is standard except for the compass, which is one of the first ten or so HMC5883L prototype boards from a while ago. The rest of the frame is mostly stock (arms, ESCs, motors), but the stack-up is a little shorter than usual, and…

Proud to post my first blog post yay !

Well ok its only eyecandy, but i hope you'll get a 2min break of what you're doing and a little smile maybe laughing at the noob, hehe ^^ fair enough !

So today i received 2 more lipos so i could finally have a proper longer flight session and could setup some cams to finally do some video recording for post analysis (yeah, to analyse stuff , whatever ill get ^^);

So i got now 2…

 …

Hey everyone, I've been trying to tackle the issue of autonomous landing for a little while now, specifically restrained to optical flow techniques. I have hit a roadblock and wanted to see if anyone on here could shed some advice on the issue.

Essentially what is happening is I have a downward looking vision chip that can successfully put a Coaxial helicopter into a hover using a minimization of OF. I want that chip to now track a moving surface underneath it, particularly a…

After Chris posted about a new sonar mount on thingverse for Arducopter, I realised that everyone who purcahsed a Arducopter 3DR frame, has a potential sonar mount included in the kit.…

PASSED…

Spotted on Thingverse, uploaded by Jag.…

Nice IMU project spotted on Dangerous Prototypes with MEMS gyros and accelerometer, Cortex-M3.

"The IMU is supposed to be high-end, implementing state-of-the-art data filtering, best low-cost MEMS sensors available and many features to compete with commercial IMUs used in…

Although LED strip lighting looks more spectacular, I couldn't help but notice these little lights the other day when I was nosing my way through the aisles at Home Depot. They are called Dot-Its, by Sylvania. They are meant to be decorative note-holders, lit with SMT LED's and powered by a lithium disk cell.

These lights are really quite bright, and you can select a steady or blinking mode. They have an adhesive backing, but they also have strong magnets in…

More goodness from UC Berkeley: iBird, a robotic ornithopter that can fly towards shiny targets. Starts at 1:31 in the video above (the first part is a cockroach). From Gizmodo.

Good inspiration.

I found this bird on youtube made by a man from Norway.

4.4M…

From our Wired Science blog. This team is presenting this week at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in San Francisco this week. I'm speaking there, too, on…

My 3DR quad frame is finished, and I mounted the 880 kV motors and 12" props. This thing is a BEAST! It takes off like a rocket, although the flight times are rather short. All in all, I love the frame build. Thanks, Jeff, for helping me out with the bolt issue.

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