Jan 26, 2016 | MyMiniFactory has today launched one of its most exciting 3D Design Competitions yet: in collaboration with French company Parrot, the 3D modeling site is inviting 3D designers from around the world to submit their original add-ons and accessories to pimp-out the range of Parrot drones. Winners will receive up to $2,000 worth of prizes, as well as the chance to have their 3D printable product sold in the official Parrot store. Unmanned Aerial Devices, also known as drones, are one of the biggest crazes in 3D printing right now. The combination of custom designs, lightweight materials, and the ability to integrate electronics, motors, lights, and cameras makes 3D printing an ideal manufacturing method for bringing your wildest drone creations to life. We’ve seen 3D printed drones inspired by Lunar Landers, 3D printed racing drones, and yes, even a 3D printed flamethrowing drone. Parrot provides technological expertise and innovative development in the automotive, civic drone, and connected objects market.

In terms of its drones, Parrot offers an impressive range of flying leisure quadcopters, including the Bebop 2, the Rolling Spider, the AR.Drone 2.0, and an entirely new range of aerial and ground-based Minidrones. Designed with performance, functionality and safety in mind, Parrot’s drones feature precise navigational controls, powerful computers, and robust, weather-resistance structures. The MyMiniFactory and Parrot Official 3D Printable Design Competition invites 3D designers to show Parrot how they would modify or enhance these drones to make piloting them either more functional, or just plain fun. Some suggestions include designing a 3D printed helipad to land on, a ramp to jump off of, or a gate to fly through—but why stop there? Aquatic accessories, rocket launchers, lighting features, grippers…the era of drones has arrived, and the 3D printable possibilities are endless. Between January 26th and February 16th, 3D designers can upload the STL files for their 3D printable drone accessories to MyMiniFactory 3D model repository sites.

Winners will be determined by the number of likes on their designs, with Parrot choosing three additional winners based on the commercial viability of their designs. The winners will then have the chance to work with Parrot’s design team to further refine and enhance their models, and eventually have them sold in the official Parrot store. The uploaded STL models will also be made available to the public to download for free and 3D print at home. As a few guidelines, the company encourages competitors to consider designs with a story to tell, designs that do not compromise functionality, or accessories that can carry weight, balance positioning, and maintain the drone’s structural integrity. MyMiniFactory has provided a few useful drone design templates and other designer tools, but submissions should be as original as poassible if you want to win. By tapping into the pool of MyMiniFactory 3D designers and engineers, Parrot hopes not only to take advantage of the rapid prototyping capabilities of 3D printing—which will allow them to produce multiple iterations of new products faster and cheaper than with traditional manufacturing methods—but also to quickly identify with the kind of exciting and functional accessories and add-ons their existing consumer base wants to see.

We’ve seen origami-inspired 3D printed drones, VR-enhanced hexacopter drones, and even a 3D printed drone break the Guinness World Record for heaviest load lifted. ar drone parrot bedienungsanleitungThe earliest competition entrants have already been uploaded to MyMiniFactory, and they include a range of top mounts, bottom mounts, and even a Flying Pig mount. parrot ar drone charger flashing red and greenSubmissions for the 3D printable drone accessory challenge close on February 16th, with the voting period running from February 24th until March 11th.parrot ar drone and gyro flyer rc helicopters race Posted in 3D Printing Events Maybe you also like:“Joggobot” Drones Invented To Track Runners

Is it Big Brother or a runner’s best friend? Look out George Orwell fans: a new technology has been unveiled that is supposedly out to help runners. These hovercraft contraptions are called “joggobots”. , the craft, which is actually a Parrot A.R. Drone, is programmed to follow an orange and blue tee shirt that the runner wears. It will then hover about three and a half feet above the ground. If it loses sight of the runner, it is programmed to land on its own. “Should the robot be a pacemaker for the jogger? If so, can this be motivating? Or should the Joggobot be more like a dog, reacting to the jogger like a companion?” ask the co-inventers, Eberhard Gräther and Floyd Mueller of the Exertion Games Lab at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. The partners plan to study the interaction between humans and robots. They contend that runners can use the technology in a variety of helpful ways.When you think of consumer drones, chances are you are thinking of quadcopters. 

But fixed-wing drones have long been a staple of the military and the model aircraft community and now Parrot, which pioneered the quadcopter craze with its AR.Drone, is getting into the fixed-wing game, too. The 700-gram Parrot Disco, which the company has been working on for the last two years, is a small fixed-wing consumer drone that looks like a model airplane. It can fly up to 45 minutes and reach speeds of just under 50 mph. The 1080p 14-megapixel camera at the front of the drone is the same one that Parrot used for its Bebop 2 quadcopter. Just like Parrot’s other drones, the Disco is controlled over Wi-Fi through the company’s FreeFlight smartphone and tablet app or through Parrot’s more professional Skycontroller (which the team actually recommends). Like all drones, the Disco comes with a set of standard sensors like an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer and GPS. The Disco also features a pitot tube, which is typically used on planes to measure airspeed.

On a quadcopter, airspeed isn’t all that important, but it definitely matters when you want to keep a plane in the air. The Disco isn’t the only fixed-wing consumer drone available, but the Parrot team emphasizes that the Disco is much simpler to get flying than competitors’ drones. Some fixed-wing models require users to manually set items like the pitch and yaw, but by only requiring a quick shake to situate the Disco and a toss into the air to get it going, this drone will be much simpler to get airborne. Landing is undoubtedly the hardest part of flying any plane and that’s no different for fixed-wing model aircraft either. As the Parrot team tells us, the Disco will offer an auto-land mode where the plan will slowly fly back to its take-off point and then slowly circle to land. It’s worth noting that while this is Parrot’s first fixed-wing consumer drone, it’s not the company’s first foray into this field. Parrot acquired senseFly, which makes a range of fixed-wing drones for professional applications like mapping, back in 2012.