Yep this shows up once per season, some seasons we are blessed with two of them.
Yep, the sad part is that the forum software tries pretty hard to not have duplicate / similar titles trying to cut down on the duplicate posts.
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It’s definitely possible if you scale back your expectations, think fixed wing with only thrust control.
Assuming we’re limited to VRC legal parts, an unlimited supply of legal sized polycarbonate could be exploited.
You could form the wings by using polycarbonate to form the ribs of the wings, standoffs as the stringers, and super thin polycarbonate as the skin. The fuselage could just be a couple C-channels bolted together to form an I beam. The props could be made from polycarb sheets and thermally formed (It’d be extremely impractical but technically feasible). If you take out the gear cartridge from the motor, you can use less external gearing.
Also, a certain Youtuber with a cordless drill RC plane comes to mind.
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It might be possible but nobody ever builds one after these posts so why bother.
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Fun theoreticals is all
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Large blades made of Lexan. 7:1 gear ratio, with a speed motor. made of thin aluminum plates, not c-channels.
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coming back to mention this gem of a thread:
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Peter Sripol, isn’t it?
Fixed wing is a good idea I hadn’t thought about. I’m pretty confident it’s impossible to make a “drone” because the power to weight ratio of the vex electronics is just awful, but a fixed wing without any control surfaces could be plausible. Unfortunately it would have to be thrown, so it couldn’t take off during a match. What’s the fun of building something legal if you can’t troll a comp with it lol.
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no
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Perhapse:cold_face:
20charaters
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Spite to show that your prediction that a vex drone could be made was right
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I would say no, not with the rules you’ve set.
While a VEX motor powered drone may be possible, you would at the very least need a real RC flight controller and battery. While I’ve not done the testing myself, I believe the VEX motors are capable of producing enough force to lift their weight and then some with the proper (once again, not VEX) propellers, but the brain and battery would weigh so much that, to reach the amount of motors required to lift it, you’d probably either hit the brain current limit or burn through the battery.
LEGO drones have been made that use LEGO motors but, once again, the flight controller and battery need to be built for the task of flying a drone, perhaps with some effort a VEX legal drone chassis may be constructed with VEX motors to power it though!
I’d love to be proven wrong, however, a VEX drone would be a sight to see, that’s for sure.
Cheers!
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Honestly I don’t really think a v5 motor could produce enough power to lift itself, although I haven’t done testing either. The reason being, normal drones often use direct drive (or on lower quality, brushed drones, one set of gears) whereas the v5 motors have several sets of gears to lower the speed of the output, and you would need additional gears on the outside to bring that speed back up. All this stuff adds weight and friction. Maybe after the season’s over, I’ll test it myself. I’m sure I can find a way to attach some of the 5" props I have to a vex axle.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
vex airship.
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The only thing I’m really wondering about this topic is: How am I able to use pneumatics on this thing.
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“I swear my blip is made from 100% vex legal parts. How did I make it? Well you see I turned the aluminum into foil! What?!?! You think my use of hydrogen gas is unsafe? Why is it decorated like the Hindenburg? Seemed suitable for a blimp don’t you think? No it doesn’t sound like predictive naming”
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Hey, maybe I could fill the pneumatic reservoirs with helium!
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Yes, we need a VEX airship. As I learned in science class a long time ago, rockets practically work by shooting out mass from their rocket boosters (in the form of fuel). What we need to do is apply the same concept and find a way to propel the airship by shooting nylock nuts out of the back to supply enough force to propel the airship forward.
#NylockNutsforFuel
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What about a airplane style prop plane? Foam or some other lightweight material for wings and a very lightweight frame for motors, brain and battery?
Please don’t revive dead threads. Especially when all your comment does is beat around a dead horse.
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