Thinking of making your own drone? Check this out. TechinAsia covered a story on a new Chinese startup that wants to bring you a 3D printed, smartphone-controlled drone. HeX Air Robot is its name and it’s developed by the team behind AngelEyes.
The new way to sell hardware
Team member George Liu told TechinAsia why and how they make use of 3d printing technology:
‘Yes, we find 3D printing fascinating. It’s not just an experiment. Actually, we make some components and parts needed on HeX by 3D printing and all of the design files will be shared on the website Thingiverse so that hobbyists can download them to make and customize a HeX for themselves. Also, we’ll sell HeX and its parts via Shapeways, which we think is a new way to sell hardware.’
HeX Air Robot and Kickstarter
George also explains about the different stages the project has to go through.
‘Actually there are several stages in the development of HeX. The first stage, which we are on now, [means we’ve] finished the first prototype of it and we’re improving it. We plan to sell it on Kickstarter.com, which we estimate might happen at the end of January, to raise funds for the next stages of evolution. With the money we could raise, we’re going to add some sensors and an airborne computer on HeX to make it able to avoid obstacles automatically. Ultimately, we plan to mount a camera on it and make it able to track a moving target and film it so that extreme-sports fans can use it as an aerial filming kit.’