Wooden Quadcopter

Have you ever wanted to go to the moon. Well we did too but we didn't. We created a quad copter (drone) that is completely powered by rubber bands. We built it from scratch without any outside plans or help. Just using the resources that we have on our classroom we created and tested a (not so successful) rubber band drone. We learned a lot along the way that will help us with our future projects that we will tackle in our years to come.

-Balsa Wood

-Glue

-Rubber Bands

-String

-Saw

-Masking/Regular Tape

-2 Hooks

-Wheels

-4 Propellers

-Knife

-tape measure/ ruler

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To start off we cut down each of our sides to be 14 inches long and glued them together, next we cut down more pieces of wood to 14 inches and then laid them across the starting square shape. Then we started to build the shaft with 4 pieces 8 inches long, and 3 more pieces 3 1/2 inches across the bottom. With those 2 pieces built we then glued them together to make are fully built base.

After we formed our base, we started to but together our propellers and the way we're going to get them to spin. First we put 4 wheels in the center of the build and put wood through the center with a hook attached to it. With that hook we grabbed a rubber band and attached the hook on the wheels to hook that was placed at the bottom of copter so that when the middle piece turned the rubber bands would as well. After that we put a few more wheels in the corners and put the propellers behind them, after that was set up we ready to start setting up our other rubber bands attached the propeller and the middle piece so that we could make it fly!

It took us about 2 weeks to get to the point of final building and testing. After weeks of work this thing had the audacity to fail us. The base worked perfect, but our drive-train was horribly executed. With all the tension on the outer propellers they got pulled into the center and bound it up. I believe if we redesigned out drive system we would have a functional/flying drone.

In the end we learned a lot about teamwork, engineering, and craftsmanship. I think that the experience was worth more than it would have been if it worked. We are proud of our project and we took a lot away from it. Hoped you enjoyed reading about or story of success/ failure