In 2013 I got inspired to build my own drone. It was a really fun experience and taught me a lot about drones, but even more about completing projects in itself. I closely followed this guide throughout the project which made it quite manageable.
I started with building the frame out of an old coat rack. Legs of steel wire and a plastic food container for housing the electronics. Quite the DIY feel indeed. I remember the drone being rather heavy, and quite big. I don’t remember how long I spent building it together, but I do remember how long it flew for.
The first thing you shuld know is that I had configured the thrust controls upside down. Therefore when I first switched on the drone, I got a bit of a suprize. I remember the scene like this. I was inside, as the plans were just to see that the drone provided life, and slowly calibrate it to stay uppright. I switched on the drone first. This part went without fault. Then I switched on the remote. As soon as the remote was turned on it told the drone to go full thruttle. The drone did so, but as soon as it left the ground, the uncalibrated onboard computer remembred that it did not know upp drom down. It found the closest wall and figured it kinda looked like the sky. It then tried and gave upp on drilling its way to the next room, and slid down to the floor again. Now upside down, it was more stable, but it also seemed rather angry as it was atemptimg to drill to China at full speed.
I don’t really remember what happened next too well, but somewhere in my panic I got a large pillow and jumped on the drone trying to strangle it dead. I ripped out the battery and finally got it under control.
One could say it was quite a lot of building for a rather short flight. Still, I was not quite done yet. I compleatly rebulit the drone, and this time out of hard wood. However the dense wood I used was even more heavy than the metal frame, and V2 never got off the ground.
V3 was built with a custom carbon fiber frame. A lot lighter and a lot meaner. I do remember getting it in the air and cautiously flying it around. However I did realise that building the drone had always been much more fun than flying it, and I never bothered much with the flight.
I ended up using the parts for some other vehicles and a rather creative flying car powered by the ground effect. Since then I never flew the drone, but I recently found the parts again. Perhaps it’s time to revisit the hobby. I imagine some smarter controllers could be fun to play around with.