Over the last week one of our engineers prototyped a drone fuselage and wing linkage out of bamboo. The structural strength does not compare favourably to plastics, but is within tolerances. We're also working on a potentially hobby priced tool to make wings out of industrial foam (possibly allowing offcut waste to be repurposed). Do yall have an interest in this technology being posted here, or am I out in left field?
Sounds cool, post it
https://twitter.com/SmallRobotArmy/status/1790102368979202360/photo/1 this is what's passing unit tests right now, I can post more drone fuselage stuff as it gets built, probably this week.
Was it laminated bamboo? How big was this drone? I was under the impression that bamboo had some impressive qualities, or maybe that was when it was fiberglass wrapped. 🤔 Cross grain laminated bamboo material, or straight raw bamboo? Do I need to sign an NDA to see a picture? So many questions...
This. it poses real possibilities and id like to know more
Oh it's all in development and I'm just throwing out feelers right now. I'll be posting more as we get more stuff out of the lab. Right now it's going on a Part 107 fixed wing drone with a wingspan of about 1.5m that will receive a vtol conversion kit. Not sure what we're going to apply to it for a fuselage coating yet. It was straight bamboo rods.
Pictures coming!
https://twitter.com/SmallRobotArmy/status/1790102368979202360/photo/1 Here's a lab shot from our twitter.
this is rly interesting, can you provide any data on how their made? (trying to gauge the applications for said drones)
I don't personally find it all that compelling. Drones are low-volume, small, and the alternative materials (i.e., aluminum) are reusable and recyclable. Never mind that much of the drone will be made out of less-sustainable materials than wood, metal, or even many homogeneous plastics.
That's not to say it's bad or anything, just that the impact is quite small.
True, but hopefully the design open new kinds of doors, thorough I'm not sure what those would be
What's the purpose? Is it meant for like large-scale transportation kind of a thing, or like a video drone (something with little load, for recreational purposes?)
That's TBD as we're still in early development, we have to see how much it ends up scaling. We're working on smaller drones right now for light cargo and video observation but we do plan on simulating much, much bigger ones later this year on this thread.
Try growing the bamboo inside a mold.
Sounds rad!
There's an artist named Diana Scherer who has been doing some really interesting work molding plant roots into different physical forms.
Makes me wonder if there's some crossover potential here where directed bamboo growing could result in a drone whose fuselage you can grow.
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