The quadcopter craze has been hitting many hobbyists in recent years, with momentum picking up in the past year.Quadcopters are remote-controlled helicopters with four rotors on the top. Compared with normal dual-rotor helicopters, quadcopters are relatively easier to control, and have been popular with amateurs for their easier handling and construction process.
Over at migme, our director of engineering, Shay Peleg (@shay.peleg), has been busy building his own quadcopters, and has been busy on his miniblog documenting the process of making them.
He said the hobby speaks to his various strengths in engineering, but also tests him in new skill sets, from physics and electronics, to building skills and programming.
“I spend countless hours in my free evenings to research and learn new stuff related to flying,” he said.
Here, he shows one of his flight controller boards. The controller board is the brain of the device, similar to the motherboard of a PC. It measures and calculates factors such as the altitude and level, and adjusts each rotor to stabilize the aircraft. It also takes instructions from the user on controlling the plane’s direction.
Shay said it’s not a difficult hobby to get into for the keen amateur. “You can start from as little as US$30 for a very basic flying toy. It’s also a good idea that it’s cheap, so that when you crash it won’t be so expensive to repair,” he said.
He favors the rcgroups.com community, and said beginners have a good resource there to ask for which parts are good buys and how to troubleshoot issues.
And don’t be afraid of crashing, he said. It’s all part of the hobby. Here’s a video of Shay’s quadcopter going down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqQRUQ3-0pw
Did you enjoy this post? Follow more of @shay.peleg‘s #hobby on his miniblog!
- by @vickiho
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