Drone Design: 4/4 Making a Mapping Drone

This is part 4 of a project to show the positive impact that drones can have on disaster relief. This part focuses on the Surveillance Drone. Imagine the benefits of having a drone be able to fly into areas where conventional cars, boats, or humans can get to during and after a natural disaster in order to map out damaged areas or find people in need of help.

For the designing you will want to use 123D Design.

Approximate Time to Complete: 20-25 minutes

Step 1: Insert a Hemisphere.

In the top bar, select "Primitives", and then "Hemisphere". The shape should appear along with a dialog box wanting the radius. Set it to ten and click enter (use TAB to switch through dialog boxes).

NOTE: The dimensions are not important. The design can be scaled to your desired dimensions once it is complete.

Step 2: Construct the Legs

From the primitives section insert two cylinders. The radius should be 1.5 and the height 80.

Step 3: Attach the Legs to the Bottom of the Hemisphere.

Click the "Snap" tool in the top bar and select one of the cylinders and then the bottom of the hemisphere.

Next, select the yellow circle with two protruding black arrows; this lets you rotate the piece. A dialog box should appear. set it to 90.

Snap the other cylinder to the bottom of the hemisphere. Both cylinders should be perpendicular, if they aren't rotate the second cylinder so it is.

Step 4: Enclosing the Cylinders.

From the primitives section, insert a cylinder of radius ten and height three. Snap it to the bottom of the hemisphere.

Step 5: Connect the Rotor Bases to the Ends of the Cylinders.

From the primitives section insert four cylinders of radius 1.5 and height three. Use the snap tool to snap the side of the cylinder to the end of one of the legs.

Instead of clicking enter, set the dialog box to -1; this is he offset of the snap.

Do this process for each of the other legs.

Step 6: Sketching the Rotors.

From the top bar, click "sketch", and then "Polyline". Select the plane to begin sketching.

Start by drawing a line of length three. Next, draw a line from the from the top of that line. This line should have a length of 15, and an angle of 84.3. Close the loop and do the same to the other side.

Step 7: Constructing the Rotors.

From the top bar, Click "Construct", and then "Extrude". Select both sides of the rotor and enter two into the dialog box.

Snap the bottom of the rotors to the tops of the rotor bases. Rotate the pieces so they are perpendicular to the leg they are located on.

NOTE: If you want to print off the entire structure, the rotors should be detached from the drone and printed separately for a higher quality product.