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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Medusa build inspiration: Project linkall HK UAV

The Linkall team founded by Jiaqi Hu and Zebo has built an impressive drone that is a inspiration to our team. The Medusa UAV will be similar to the Linkall drone in size and shape, but will differ in design and construction.

Our hats are off to the Project Linkall team. See more about their project on the DYI Drone site and the links below.

Linkall HK flight video
http://youtu.be/IuWmLhJBPzk

DYI Drones Linkall Build
http://diydrones.com/m/blogpost?id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A1142725

Linkall Website:

http://linkall.cc

Linkall Info.

The Project linkall has been founded by Jiaqi Hu and Zebo Sun since Oct 2011. Linkall is considered to be the pioneer in the drones delivery system, which has been developed and researched by our team with all the curiosity and enthusiasm for such a new field.

The technological solution of fully automated end to end drones delivery system by linkall is not just a drone for transportation and delivery, but an totally autocratic and continuous working system. In the very near future, the convenient service provided by linkall will become an indispensable part of your life. Especially, we do not only provide service to urban residents, instead, we hope to serve all the people who need it with no charge, especially those in remote area.

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Medusa Visual Inspiration

All great projects come from great inspiration.When we sat down to discuss what type of UAV we wanted to create the Terminators HK Hunter killer and the Matrix Sentinel immediately came to mind. 

I looked over hundreds of images trying to find the one that fit the communicate the final look and feel for the Medusa Project. These dark menacing designs with machine minds hovering in the smoke and darkness provoke the perfect combination of awe and fear for a theatrically remember-able flight.

This Sentinel by Felix Joleanes is not only a great image but also a great model. Check out the following links to see more of his work on the project.

The Trickster Project Blog

http://joleanes.com/

This Sentinel by Felix Joleanes is not only a great image but also a great model. Check out the following links to see more of his work on the project.

This amazing image of the HK was created by concept artist Peter Rubin at Iron Rooster Studios.http://www.ironroosterstudios.com/

Below are my initial concept sketches of the Medusa project were done on my Phone with Autodesk SketchPro Mobile app. They are my first impressions of mixing the multiple segmented arms and multiply eyes of the sentinel and the v tailed quad adaption of the HK Body. 

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Medusa Project 26lbs Multirotor Power System

The Medusa's heavy lift UAV power system is being designed with the maximum thrust and lift capacity for a quad copter built with standard multirotor system components.  Follow the tech talk discussion on the RC Forum.

Components for 1500+mm (Y4) vtailed heavy lift multirotors

Latest Power System Configuration

4: Avroto 3520 LIFT Series KV:400 brushless motors
4: 18/ 6.1 Carbon Fiber Props
4:  Amp ESC's (Simon K flashed)
2: Nano tech 6S 8000mah 65/100c Lipo batteries

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Npower Software Sponsors Medusa Project.

Dave Gill and the Npower Software team have decided to sponsor the Medusa Project by graciously providing our team with a license of Power NURBS. The Npower software suite for Autodesks 3ds Max will provide our creative team with the advance surface and solid modeling tools necessary to prototype the vehicle. 

 
As a long time user of Power NURBS user I can't express how thankful we are for the Npower teams much welcomed support on our project. The software is a dream to work with providing 3ds Max users an intuitive UI and comprehensive CAD accurate surfaces. The software's unique properties will provide the corner stone of project. It will allow us to export our 3d solid model directly to Autodesk Inventor where we can engineer in the details and prototype the UAV.

Check out the software: http://www.npowersoftware.com/NewPowerNURBS.html

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Detroit TechShop Sponsors Medusa Project

Initial Medusa project sponsorship meeting with Will Brick at the Detroit TechShop.

Will was great. He explained that the TechShop was all about the DYI community and is fully committed to helping us achieve our goal of building our UAV. He took the time to give me a full tour of the facility and let me tell you the space and the tools are amazing.

Will asked me to make an initial presentation of the Medusa Project to community February the 8th. I am so looking forward to the experience.

http://www.techshop.ws/ts_detroit.html

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Creativity-CAD-Community>>>> It all starts here.

Our goal for the Medusa Project is to bring together creativity, CAD and community to develop an construct a custom UAV

The Core Mackevsion Team of the project is myself Eric Pinkel and Vaughan Gernhardt with various concept input from Joe Palma. However, since the project was conceived as a community endeavor, I am sure the list will grow and grow.

The Medusa Project is designed by nature to use a complete Autodesk Software workflow from concept to creation.  The open nature of the project means that all of the construction data of the project will be published so that anyone can replicate the Medusa Drone.

Here we go.

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