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Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 2nd, 2011, 2:57 am
by jander14indoor
Totally aside from the importance of not automatically believing advertising copy, even if the design in the kit is capable of reaching two minutes in experienced hands (who don't NEED a kit) YOU still need to do your homework (careful build, test, evaluation and adjustment) to get the kit to do two minutes. And if you do that you 'GET' the academic point of the event. As important, you'll have fun and have earned any contest results you get.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

PS, sorry for the run-on sentence, my English teacher's of MANY years ago would cringe over that!

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 2nd, 2011, 6:14 am
by Frogger4907
jander14indoor wrote:Totally aside from the importance of not automatically believing advertising copy, even if the design in the kit is capable of reaching two minutes in experienced hands (who don't NEED a kit) YOU still need to do your homework (careful build, test, evaluation and adjustment) to get the kit to do two minutes. And if you do that you 'GET' the academic point of the event. As important, you'll have fun and have earned any contest results you get.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

PS, sorry for the run-on sentence, my English teacher's of MANY years ago would cringe over that!
I wish they would have a video of there tests of their kits, for a little proof, but oh well. :|

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 2nd, 2011, 6:25 am
by eta150
The river city rocket has a video on youtube that shows it breaking 1:30 (I think) in an 8 foot ceiling.

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 2nd, 2011, 6:27 am
by Frogger4907
eta150 wrote:The river city rocket has a video on youtube that shows it breaking 1:30 (I think) in an 8 foot ceiling.
oh can you link it? sounds pretty good.

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 2nd, 2011, 7:36 am
by CodyHaern
I need to practice helicopters for state :)

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 2nd, 2011, 8:08 am
by eta150
It was earlier in the thread, here it is again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqV_y-CSznM

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 9th, 2011, 7:54 am
by Frogger4907
eta150 wrote:It was earlier in the thread, here it is again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqV_y-CSznM
Thanks... :)

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 13th, 2011, 8:12 pm
by lllazar
Hey guys i was just wondering, how much clay(mass wise) should i be adding to the copter. It comes out to be 3.6 g built without the clay, so i was just wondering if i should invest some of that mass in a stronger motor stick, seeing as .4g of clay...seems a little excessive.

Basically, assuming it's completely balanced when built (and it practically is because i have 2 free rotors, and it has the same components top and bottom) how much more mass do i want to add to the bottom, since we want it to act as a ballast?

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 13th, 2011, 9:53 pm
by chia
If you're sure the motor stick you have now isn't going to bend excessively or break or anything, there probably isn't any point using a different one. And if you have to add clay anywhere, you should probably add it at the very bottom - even if it's .4 grams of it (as long as you can figure out how to attach it without it interfering with the mechanics, since you said yours had the bottom rotor free as well, right?). I think it's okay if the copter is "bottom-heavy", it just can't be top-heavy.

Re: Designs and Kits

Posted: March 14th, 2011, 6:27 pm
by kjhsscioly
lllazar wrote:Hey guys i was just wondering, how much clay(mass wise) should i be adding to the copter. It comes out to be 3.6 g built without the clay, so i was just wondering if i should invest some of that mass in a stronger motor stick, seeing as .4g of clay...seems a little excessive.

Basically, assuming it's completely balanced when built (and it practically is because i have 2 free rotors, and it has the same components top and bottom) how much more mass do i want to add to the bottom, since we want it to act as a ballast?

If it is perfectly balanced, at the bottom will help it keep from swinging, but since balance isn't always the case, you can use minute amounts of clay or glue at the ends of rotors to balance. Also, building to mass is better than adding clay, because of even distribution. Our regionals copters both came within 5/100ths of a gram of target (sans clay).