When we did our Alex Rider contest, one of the kids proposed a tiny spy cam built into a faux maple leaf one could launch with a slingshot. We thought it was a clever idea. Some researchers at the University of Maryland’s Dept. of Aerospace Engineering were similarly inspired by samara seed pods and created the RoboSeed.
Gareth Branwyn is a freelancer writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture, including the first book about the web (Mosaic Quick Tour) and the Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots. He is currently working on a best-of collection of his writing, called Borg Like Me.
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Nice work. I have spent many a childhood hour throwing Billions (OK…a bunch..:) of maple tree helicopters.
44.594986,-72.866617 Right here, according to Google Maps.
You know… I’ll bet if you could have its camera synchronize with its spinning you could have it take one picture per revolution and get a stable image of the same spot each time.
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