Collaborate Disseminate
[Tom Stanton] is right about one thing: flywheels make excellent playthings. Whether watching a spinning top that never seems to slow down, or feeling the weird forces a gyroscope exerts, …read more Continue reading Magnetic Bearings Put the Spin on This Flywheel Battery
Question: Can a flywheel store enough energy to power an airplane? Answer: Yes it can, for certain values of “flywheel” and “airplane.”
About the only person we can think of who would even attempt to build a flywheel-powered airplane is [Tom Stanton]. He’s a great one for off-the-wall ideas that …read more
Continue reading Flywheel Stores Energy to Power an Airplane – Eventually
Disclaimer: no dams were actually busted in the making of the video below. But that doesn’t mean that a scale-model homage to the WWII Dam Busters and their “Bouncing Bombs” isn’t worth doing, of course.
In a war filled with hacks, [Barnes Wallis]’ Bouncing Bomb concept might just be the …read more
When you think about all the forces that have to be balanced to keep a drone stable, it’s a wonder that the contraptions stay in the air at all. And when the only option for producing those forces is blowing around more or less air it’s natural to start looking for other, perhaps better ways to achieve flight control.
Taking a cue from the spacecraft industry, [Tom Stanton] decided to explore reaction wheels for controlling drones. The idea is simple – put a pair of relatively massive motorized wheels at right angles to each other on a drone, and use …read more
Continue reading Reaction Wheels Almost Control This Unusual Drone