Helicopter

A helicopter is a kind of flying machine or aircraft. A helicopter lifts up off of the ground and moves because of its rotors. A rotor is several small wings, called rotor blades, that spin together around a shaft. For that reason, helicopters are sometimes called rotary-wing aircraft. A helicopter flies differently from an airplane. An airplane must move forward to stay in the air, but because the helicopter's rotor blades are always moving, the helicopter can stop and stay in one place above the ground. This allows them to land in places where an airplane cannot. Helicopters can move by tilting their rotors, which causes the rotor blades to fly in the direction the rotor is tilted. A helicopter may be built from scratch or modified from a purchased copter (go to 1:39 left in this video). The Parrot DR.Drone is made with open source software and costs $299.

Once the helicopters are built, autopilots can be modified to:
 * copter games (first person shooter with virtual bullets on real platform)
 * copter dances
 * copter ball juggling (image tennis, imagine ping pong)
 * copter agility contests
 * copter flying through thrown hoops (go to 1 minute mark)
 * copter jitter free video (can turn off 3D)
 * copter lift competitions (go to 9 minute mark)

The big advantage of quadcopters is that they can fly indoors. Don't have to worry about restricted airspace. Perhaps enter one of the AUVSI competitions.

Subsystems

 * Test Room
 * Test Station
 * Air Frame
 * Electronic Speed Control Sync, Start Up
 * Video
 * GPS for auto pilot
 * Target recognition
 * GPS for target location
 * PID Controller for stable flight
 * Auto Pilot
 * Fail Safe
 * Manual Pilot
 * RC control
 * adhoc, large wifi hot spots for wifi control
 * Battery mangement, power system
 * Gryo Accelerometer stabilization

College/Universities
/Howard Community College/