(Phys.org) —When an independent designer comments that his interest is "in taking stuff away from the computer screen" and finding ways to interact with information in more interesting ways, then it is not unreasonable to expect entertaining results. Jasper van Loenen, a Dutch designer, made that comment and he has come up with a DIY, which he said stands for a "Drone It Yourself" kit, with parts that turn objects into machines that can fly. Unpack, assemble, attach. As the demo video shows, you can fly your book, keyboard, bicycle wheel, or any other suitably lightweight object. His kit carries pieces that can be clamped to the object assigned to take flight. Also involved is the flight-control unit.
The control unit has a receiver, Bluetooth module, and OpenPilot CC3D flight controller. (OpenPilot is an Open Source autopilot platform for small UAVs. It's capable of flying multirotors, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.)
Many of the parts in the kit can be created with a 3-D printer. Van Loenen made the printer files available, so that people can get into DIY mode with 3-D printing. Both the original files and the printable STL files are available at a link that the designer provides on his page.(STL stands for stereolithography.)Talking about the printed parts on the Instructables site, he said, "I recommend printing them in ABS or something similarly strong and durable. I printed them in ABS with a fill of around 50 percent and a rectangular mesh, but I think printing them with slightly more fill might be better. It will not increase the weight that much (all the printed parts are pretty light) and might increase the strength quite a bit."
As for the DIY title, van Loenen said that "Technically this would be an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), not a drone, but drone seems to be the term most used these days."
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