Helicopter/Howard Community College/Fall2012/p3-550-mww

Problem Statement

To create a way to attach a Nerf gun to a quadcopter to allow firing.
To repair the broken quadcopter
To fly the quadcopters around the pylons in the galleria.

Team Members

Walke
Wilson
Quentin

Summary

For this project, our team learned how to fly the quadcopters, how t adjust the flight settings, and found the causes of several issues flying the quadcopters. We also developed ways of attaching a Nerf gun, attaching longer lasting batteries, and flying the quadcopter using a netbook laptop.

Poster

When we started this project, we all took home a quadcopter. Anthony and Nancy learned how to fly them. We had to fix one of the quadcopter motors, so we took the replacement motor and fixed the quadcopter. We then bought new c-clips for the propellers on another quadcopter, as the originals had been lost. Our goal in the project was to mount a Nerf gun and shoot it from the quadcopter. We tested the quadcopters to see how much weight they would hold, and eventually created a mount and Nerf gun to attach to the quadcopter.We also tested the quadcopter to try and find the reason for a lose of control in flight. We discovered an issue with the ultrasound sensor, and also documented how to adjust each of the settings on the quadcopter. We also replaced the battery connectors on one of the quadcopters, so that we could attach a longer lasting battery allowing for prolonged fight time. Finally, we Downloaded an application to allow the quadcopter to fly from a laptop, and connected the quadcopter and started to fly using this application.

Material List

1. 3 A.R. Drone Quadcopters

2. One Nerf Nite Finder

3. C-clips

4. Lipo battery

5. Anderson power pole connectors

Software List

A.R Drone FreeFrlight application from the app store. NavAndroid for Android 3.2 Android OS 3.2

Time

68 hours.

Tutorials

Here is a tutorial on adjusting the flight settings on your A.R. Drone Flight settings adjustments:

Here is a link to the Android Tutorial so that you can fly the quad copter with a laptop.

Android Tutorial

Attching E-Clips to Quadcopter

step 1: Tools needed to attach quad copter

Tool kit

Mounting tool

Magnet and E- clips

step 2: Aligning E- clips Align the eclip to the pin keep the magnet handy because these e-clips fly off easily and the magnet assists you in finding the e-clip.

Aligning e-clip

step3: Push e-clip into pin using mounting tool.

mounting tool

step 4: Once in place you will here it click into the pin.

Next Steps

The next steps for new teams would be to convert all of the quadcopters to use Anderson power-pole battery connectors, learn to fly the quadcopter using a laptop, and attaching the Nerf gun to the quadcopter and designing a mechanism to shoot the gun while it is in flight.