Cardboard Copter

Inspiration

One plain Saturday morning, we were sitting in our living room bored out of our minds as midterms were over! We noticed there was a lot of cardboard left over from study night pizza boxes and a huge propeller that fell off our Google internship cap. So naturally, we could not help but think of making a cardboard helicopter! Andy and I have a very similar skillset as both of us have lots of experience with drones, so we decided to work on all aspects of the project together. FIrst with planning, then CAD, printing, coding, then finally integration.

What it does

The purpose of cardboard-copter is to avoid getting caught at all costs, so basically to provide as much of a nuisance to the owner as possible, kind of like the SNITCH from Harry Potter!

How we built it

We used a LiDAR sensor attached to the bottom of the helicopter so we could detect the closest object, then the data was relayed to our flight controller to move the helicopter away from the object. To control the propellor on top, we custom designed and 3D printed a gimbal that housed 2 servos, each to swivel the propellor on each axis. We also included a second, smaller propellor on the tail of the helicopter to counteract the moment force acting on the main body from the top propellor. Finally, we wired and soldered our motors, servos, and battery to our flight controller. All of the electronics were connected to a receiver which allowed them to be controlled using a drone controller.

Challenges we ran into

We originally were going to design an I-beam frame to hold the electronics, but the design was so good it broke our 3D printer! No seriously, our 3D printer broke while printing this design. We had no choice but to improvise and construct this beautiful cardboard and popsicle stick chassis.

When integrating the motors with the flight controller, we ran into a lot of problems with the motors not moving and the firmware being finicky. This was probably because of a defect in the flight controller as everything else worked individually.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

In the end, did our LiDAR scanner work? No. Did our drone fly? No. Were we really close though and did we have a lot of fun and drink a ton of RedBull? Absolutely. We even got the LiDAR sensor online with a Raspberry Pi!

In the end, although our project could not fly, it was truly a nuisance for us, the owners and therefore, a truly useless invention.

What we learned

Integration is difficult. Especially at 4am.

What's next for Cardboard Copter

While the current version looks questionable, it is fairly stable and we think we can eventually get it to fly! With a new flight controller and a lot of tuning, it may one day sail the skies. As a backup, we can always find a tall roof to toss it off of. After all, flying is just falling with style.

Built With

• cad
• raspberry-pi