Flying 3D Eno’s

UFO’s spotted in Brooklyn and Frisco.

Back in 2014, I bought a DJI Phantom quadcopter. I tested how much weight it could lift while maintaining some control (the answer, about 8 lbs of hex nuts looking like Mr.T’s truck jewelry). Even though it wanted to swing with a heavy pendulum motion, it worked. I then got out the calipers and measured the mounting area usually used for a drone camera. I 3D printed the mount, which allowed me to attach a modular ‘3D Eno holder’ – a 2 piece arm made sense since I could keep experimenting with different ‘pincer’ designs while also figuring out how to ‘pince’ different Eno styles. I found I needed to counterweight the quadcopter using some hex nuts taped to the back of the landing gear. And… it worked great! See the first flight in the embedded Instagram link. I had some photos/video of hitting Queens Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, and Manhattan Bridge but they all got lost with an old phone (back your shit up people).

I’m probably going to build this again with a new drone this year.