Monto RC Hobby Powers UP The Medusa Project

Thank you to the team at Monto RC Hobby for contributing 4 Avroto 3520 400Kv motors to our Autodesk University Multi-rotor UAV Project. 

 While researching large scale and heavy lift Multi-Rotor UAV's in the RC Groups I read Stephen Clinch's review of the Arvoto Lift Series motors. I was impressed by designer Andrew Raines 21lb Hexacopter and wrote Jim at Monto to discuss testing out his engine design on our project.

 The biggest design challenge for the Medusa Project is that the final UAV build weight is still undetermined. Only when we completed the 3mm ABS 3D printed exoskeleton and CNC the 1500mm air-frame can properly configure the UAV's power system.  This major factor focused our design effort to develop a Power system that would push the upper weight limit of off the shelf UAV components.   

I  added the Avroto 3520 400Kv motors specs from the Monto RC Hobby website into Ecalc to get a comparison to other motors I was researching and the numbers came back very favorable. 8500 grams at 62% Throttle for 5 minutes. 

Our next step will be to add the motors to our full scale PVC prototype to evaluate their performance with 16.5 and 17.5 Props. 

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Medusa Project Official Unveiling at Detroit TechShop

The Medusa Project had its official unveiling today at the Detroit TechShop Coffee and Concepts meet-up. The 15 minute Medusa presentation gave the interested audience of savvy DIY creators and entrepreneurs an overview of what we hoped to achieve with the UAV in the coming months. The follow up discussion included an enthusiastic round of questions ranging from how to get involved in the project to presentation safety and large scale UAV performance concerns.

As a follow up to my presentation we were treated to a live in auditorium quad-copter flight by Harry Arnold DetroitDrone.Com RC expert. You could feel the buzz of excitement and tension as soon a Harry’s drone fired up and rose into the air. I will have to say that there could not have been a better conclusion to our opening day!

Check out Harry's awesome FPV work at DetroitDrone.com 

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Eric Nantel of Lynxmotion and RobotShop Joins Medusa Air-Frame Design Team

I am excited to announce that Eric Nantel from Lynxmotion and RobotShop and designer of DiaLFonZo-Copters has generously offered his insight and time to the Medusa Project air-frame design team.

Eric's sleek v-tail design is the inspiration behind our projects internal frame design. You can follow his incredible build story of the Hunter V-Tail 400/500 mm quad copter design on the RC Forums. His work has attracted interest around the globe and his company, DiaLFonZo-Copters, was recently purchased by the RobotShop the world leading robotics store.

We are so fortunate to have Eric's design style, engineering experience, and input on our UAV project.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/drones/robotshop/prweb11396180.htm

http://www.lynxmotion.com/c-165-uav-drones.aspx

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1622447#post21161449

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Medusa Project Selects Autodesk 360 Fusion for Air-frame design.

As many of you know from earlier posts the Medusa Project will use a Autodesk software workflow.  Today we are officially announcing the use of Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD modeler for the UAV air-frame design and manufacturing.

Since our project is based on our Creative/CAD/Community philosophy Fusion 360 is a perfect fit. Fusion is centered around community development allowing the design and build team design access to the CAD airframe design from multiple locations.

The plan for the final DYI Medusa UAV model includes posting the complete design and manufacturing information to the world, so that anyone can build one. Autodesk Fusion 360 is perfect for this allowing us to export the CAD data to numerous DYI CAD sites like Grab CAD.

I am looking forward to starting the air frame design in Fusion 360 in the coming weeks. Stay posted to our blog for the latest updates.

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Medusa Project selects 3DS Max as Creative 3D platform

Our core Medusa team members are VFX and visualization artists. Our everyday job revolves around modeling and rendering photo real images and animations for the Detroit automotive industry. Our 3D tools are 3DS Max and Maya, so it seems the natural fit to use these Autodesk software tools for the creative stage of the project.

To begin we will be starting the modeling the exterior V1 prototype of the UAV in 3ds Max using Power NURBS plugin. Once modeling is complete it will proceed thru our photo-real texturing shading and lighting phase at which point we will produce a VFX style full 3d Medusa prototype flight sim animation.

Once the airframe is started we will import it into 3ds Max via nPower Power translators and adjust the v2 prototype exoskeleton to align with the airframe and build the thin walled internal support system. We then plan on exporting the exoskeleton NURBS model back into the airframe for final tooling and manufacturing in Fusion 360.

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Medusa Project uses Autodesk SketchBook Mobile for early UAV concept work.

In the spirit of keeping the Medusa drone an end to end Autodesk software project I decided to begin with the SketchBook Pro App on my Samsung Note 3 Phone. I excited to learn that Autodesk had released an Android based mobile version. I have used SketchBook on my Ipad in the past, but I wanted something that was immediately accessible and always available. The idea worked perfectly akin to sketching ideas on a napkin. 

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Mackevision Sponsors Medusa Project

I am happy to announce that Mackevision is now an official sponsor of the Medusa Project.  The core of the Medusa team consist of Mackevison artist based in the Detroit office. Mackevision supports yearly creative contests and opportunities for the artists to show off their skills. 

Heiko Wenzel president of Mackevision Detroit an artist and designer himself has always believed in pushing the creative and technical boundaries of our tight knit team.  A long time RC copter and vehicle enthusiast Heiko was excited about becoming involved with the large scale Quad Copter build. In addition to approving the use of Mackevision hardware and software he has volunteered to lead the drone flight team. He will oversee all of the airframe prototype testing to the maiden UAV launch.

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