

B go beyond – Quadcopter/RC car combo - neonkiwi
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2017062404/b-go-beyond

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bri3d
I wonder if there's an efficient mechanism to allow the hubless wheels to tuck
up (rotate 90 degrees about the center) when the machine takes flight.

The value could be twofold: the wheels could act as blade guards and the wheel
would be outside of the prop's feed and wash airstream, which would probably
lead to more desirable flight characteristics.

Maybe something for Revision 2 - as is, this is a cute combination of existing
ideas into a cool new machine.

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orangethirty
Dog bones and/or CVDs don't allow for the hub to be turned 90 degrees. You
would need some sort of drives haft like Trancas uses to allow this. Though
that complicates things a bit more.

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cromulent
It doesn't have any suspension from what I can see, so there probably aren't
any dog bones.

~~~
orangethirty
I was thinking about it from a regular rc car. This can simply use a micro
servo motor to turn it sideways

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vlasev
Here are a couple of ideas to make the video better

1\. Use a better microphone. The quality of your voice is not very good in the
video.

2\. Don't keep re-using the computer generated shots, it gets somewhat
annoying.

Here are some ideas that could make for a better demo of B

\- Test the flying mode somewhere more interesting like in the city where
there are multiple levels to reach with flying.

\- make it go from the first level of a house to the second level of a house
by going outside of the window. It would be even more impressive on a higher
building - go from the ground level to the roof level (and back).

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salimmadjd
There are projects that you want to donate to just to show support for the
creative mind for doing the seemingly impossible. This is one of them

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jwr
What really worries me looking at this design is sand getting into the
propeller motors. These need to be open because of cooling requirements
(multicopter motors will burn out very quickly if you run them without airflow
from the propeller). In this design they are very close to the ground and
likely getting sand/earth thrown inside them as it gets kicked up from the
ground by tires or as it gets transported upwards by tires and then falls off
into the motors.

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neonkiwi
At the beginning of this video I thought this was going to be a Kickstarter
project where a non-functioning model is used to sell an idea... But this guy
_actually built_ this contraption! Very impressive.

Are there spokeless wheels like that available as an off-the-shelf R/C
component?

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sbisker
I'm curious about the patent he mentions filing, for placing the quadrocopter
blades inside of the wheel. I'm not familiar with this field - is that a novel
contribution? If so, kudos to him for coming up with a simple invention I
would have thought would be patented or in use already.

~~~
noonespecial
You might think of this as a "second wave" patent where people have begun
patenting applications (or even implications) of previously invented
technology.

This project (and thousands of others like it) have just recently been made
possible by three things.

1) Small, high powered brushless motors reaching hobbyist level prices because
of neodymium magnets and manufacturing techniques.

2) Control circuits becoming possible at this level as well thanks to the
microcontrollers and sensors reaching the market that brought us things like
arduino. (10 years ago a micro with 256k of onboard flash and a 3 axis gyro
was the size of ham sandwich and cost as much as your car)

3) Cheap but very high power density lithium polymer batteries becoming
available.

We're now at the point where we can make just about any little toy fly by
festooning it with little propellers. So you can head down to the patent
office every time you think of a new place to stick one. It will seem novel
because even a few years ago, the "real" technologies that provided you with
those little propellers didn't exist.

This toy is still as cool as all get-out. I just think he's wasting time if he
goes any further than "pending" before he gets millions of $ in sales.

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Ecio78
_10 years ago a micro with 256k of onboard flash and a 3 axis gyro was the
size of ham sandwich and cost as much as your car_

genuine newbie question: is it true? 10 years ago they wire still so big and
expensive?

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ChuckMcM
Its kinda true. In 2003 gyros were a bit larger, they were just starting to
come out for R/C helicopters. And while an Arduino is a great chip its
equivalent in something like a 68HC11 or other more "general purpose"
microprocessor was larger in both surface area and design footprint (usually a
separate eprom + CPU vs built in) the the performance was equivalent.

The real killer has been _rapid update rate_ inertial measurement units (IMUs)
which refresh rapidly enough to make interesting feedback loops practical.
Small and fast IMUs have arisen out of the the development of MEMS (or Micro
Electro Mechanical Systems). Integrating the accelerometer and signal
conditioning is the thing that really kicked things off. Putting them into
phones got the volumes to the point where they are very inexpensive.

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sdfjkl
This stands out not only for the great design, but also for being an extremely
well put together Kickstarter campaign.

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shurcooL
Here's a startup idea: create a flashy Kickstarter campaign for your
idea/product.

There's already a startup that takes care of printing T-shirt rewards.

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duked
It looks awesome ! It's an impressive piece of engineering.

The price tag is a still a bit high for what I would use as a toy, but if you
consider the potential "drone" spinoff that's a steal.

The battery life is a bit limited "At the moment flying 11 min / driving up to
18 min, combined performance 15 min. "

~~~
sigkill
At that price I think he'd barely scrape by with the BOM cost. R&D costs
serious money to be very honest and (in my present experience) you burn
through electronics and mechanical parts very quickly thanks to mistakes even
after you've modeled it all up on the computer. Oh, and for an individual who
cannot afford instant shipping it costs _plenty of time_ too. I'm honestly
surprised with his claim of putting it all together in 6 months actually if I
assume he has a full-time job apart from this.

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Pyramids
I'm really surprised that an innovation which is seemingly very 'simple' has
been overlooked by the RC community for so long, with that said though, I'm
glad someone he's taking the initiative to actually build it. I've reserved
mine.

It might be worth noting for anyone who thinks this is intriguing, there is
actually quite a community for FPV / RC copters. One of my favorite YouTube
channels (once you get over the username) is
<http://www.youtube.com/user/nastycop420> which is 3 guys who go to different
destinations around the world, fly quadcopters, and post the videos on
YouTube.

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pravda
Interesting and original-ish. But practical? Can't say.

Here's a suggestion I'm going to throw out there. Instead of driving the
wheel(s), use the propellers. When landing, at least two of the propellers
pivot up and drive it around.

(You could also be clever and pivot the motors up about 60-degrees, so that
there is forward force and an upwards force that 'lightens' the unit. And then
you could drive the two stationary motors at slow speed to further 'lighten'
the unit.)

That way, you don't need another motor to power it on land, and also you could
put floats on it, so it would work in the water as well as on land.

~~~
commandar
That'd be incredibly inefficient. It uses a single brushless motor to drive
the wheels which you're driving directly. You'd have to run at least two
motors for the props and it's unlikely you'd generate enough thrust to move
nearly as well as a single direct drive.

A 2200mAH battery is already going to have limited run times in a quadcopter;
trying to use the props for the wheels too would just make that worse.

~~~
pravda
That is true -- propeller-driven cars are not so efficient, but for something
this small and light I don't think it would make much of a difference. The
thrust to move it on wheels must be a tiny fraction of the thrust needed to
lift it.

On the plus side, you could do away with those goofy wheels. Too many parts
(18? 18!) and I see tiny little gears prone to binding with the slightest bit
of dirt. And just a single wheel is driven.

Also, the wheels being _directly in the airflow_ of the propellers can't be a
good thing.

Of course, to use the propellers on the ground, you'd need a mechanism to
rotate the 'propeller pods' up. I think using the thrust of the props
themselves to do this, with a micro servo to lock them in place, would
accomplish this without adding much weight.

And if the propeller motors can be run backwards (I don't know offhand) then
you can get rid of the steering mechanism as well.

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jlgreco
If that could scale (and unfortunately my intuition says that it would not),
that would be the first reasonable layout for a air/road vehicle that I've
seen. Pretty wild.

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Retric
It would scale just fine if you wanted to drive on the highway you would be
stuck with a single seat aircraft because there would not be a lot of room
between the blades. Also there is no need for huge wheels if you scaled it up.
Worse, a helicopter is more efficient and simpler design and yet there a
extremely expensive to fly relative to a fixed wing aircraft.

IMO the best compromise is a gyro copter.
[http://www.blessthisstuff.com/stuff/vehicles/misc/gyrocopter...](http://www.blessthisstuff.com/stuff/vehicles/misc/gyrocopter-
by-auto-gyro/)

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jlgreco
That's not exactly what I'd call a reasonable thing to drive around. At the
very least I'd want ducted rotors.

~~~
Retric
That specific design is not road worthy. Ideally you would want to be able to
fold the top blades and add a duct for the pusher but that's not to bad.
However, you can see the design is structurally fairly close to a car. Many
designs have powered wheels simply for added maneuverability. Safety in a
collision is going to be an issue due to weight concerns, but they can easily
be safer than motorcycles which many people drive.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro>

Advantages, unlike quad-copters loss of electronics or engine power at
altitude does not equal death. They can do unpowered landings far more easily
and safely than helicopters. Unlike fixed wing aircraft they can do vertical
take offs and landings. Also there constuction and maintenance costs are well
below that of a helicopter.

Downsides they can't hover, they have slightly lower top speeds than small
airplanes, and unlike quad-copters they have a fairly large wingspan on
takeoff. However, quad-copters are the only aircraft with this feature and
there incredibly unsafe.

EX: A 4 seat 130mph cruse version is just a little to big for the highway.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groen_Hawk_4>

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coopdog
I'm sure it'll come but I'd love to see a petrol powered version of this with
a USB plug for an android phone. You can add all the sensors you want (LTE,
gyros, gps) via the phone, and the range would be amazing by using mostly the
wheels, then the rotors just to get over obstacles.

Would actually be pretty good for park rangers, border control, protecting
large industrial complexes (unpredictable camera points with computer vision
to locate human movement)

~~~
miahi
I'm not sure this would work; the phone will introduce a delay in the
feedback, and this can be bad, and also, the sensors need to be placed in
fixed positions for the best response (the gyro is usually placed right in the
center).

Also, petrol/nitro engines are not the best for this kind of job, as it needs
a very fast response in rotation speed and fuel engines have a high latency.
What you can do is use a fuel engine as an electrical power generator or use
variable-pitch propellers to get a faster response.

~~~
lsaferite
Sensor position is, mostly, irrelevant. You obviously get better performance
with they sensors at the crossing point of all the motors, but it's entirely
possible to put the sensors on one motor pod and calibrate it to fly with them
in that location.

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anactofgod
Fast on the ground, agile in the air.

It's a radio-controlled helicoupeter!

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utopkara
Could somebody explain why he insists on using bullet proof material to make
the body? He could have picked simpler and cheaper components/materials. Is
this a common practice for higher end quad-copters?

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Dylan16807
Concrete's bulletproof too and you don't see people calling it complex or
expensive.

~~~
utopkara
You have a point. Let me rephrase it. There are $40 quadcopters which use
weak, yet easy to replace parts. More expensive parts and materials are
usually easier to work with as well, so for a prototype they are well
justified. But for a production model like this one, is it a product market
choice to go with expensive parts, or does the cost of designing for other
materials outweigh the risk of going to the customer with a more expensive
product?

~~~
gvb
CDs are polycarbonate and are sold for $20 for a spindle of 100. At a pretty
good profit. "Bullet proof plastic" is just marketing buzzwords.

FWIIW, polycarbonate has to be quite thick to stop a bullet and is generally
used _in conjunction with_ glass. Looking at the chart[1], it is clear it will
only stop relatively lower energy handgun bullets, not high power rifle
bullets. For that, it requires a glass + plastic laminate.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_glass>

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moepstar
Being a mechanical engineer, i really wonder what was the path he took and
tools he used (being software and hardware) in designing, verifying and
creating this :)

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dmcg
If I was procuring military reconnaissance kit I'd be all over this. Efficient
and quiet, but able to cross streams and obstacles way bigger than it.

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incision
Very cool and ambitious.

I expect the price point and lack of the streamlined Amazon checkout for US
backers is going to hurt this one.

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Egregore
The video doesn't show, how it will turn in air? It seems that it only moves
to left and right, doesn't turn to left or right.

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hcarvalhoalves
If I saw a RC car flying like that I would freak out.

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bitwize
"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."

~~~
zw123456
The first thing I thought of was with all these bridges collapsing there may
be a market for a full scale version to be able to drive up to where a bridge
used to be and just fly over the gap.

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at-fates-hands
I'm getting a 403 error right now. . . ?

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iamtherockstar
I can't believe there's not a pledge level like this:

"If you pledge $5, we'll send you a GI Joe to put inside your B"

Kickstart all the functioning GI Joe vehicles of my childhood.

