Maple seed-inspired flying vehicle

Robotics

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.

X-Naves Flyer

4 thoughts on “Maple seed-inspired flying vehicle

  1. volkemon says:

    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.

  2. MadRat says:

    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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Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

View more articles by Gareth Branwyn

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