News / airframe
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Mar 03, 2016
We're on a Boat!
Read more →The 20-foot shipping container full of Quadshot parts steamed out of Shenzhen as scheduled on the APL Denmark! She has already stopped off in Taiwan, and is now headed to the Port of Oakland with an ETA of June 11. You can track the Denmark's position here (ships only update their position when they are near shore). It is supposed to take 3-4 days for the container to clear customs and get trucked to us in Santa Cruz, so we’re planning a container unloading party for around Friday the 15th. Fingers crossed! Thus we still believe that kits - Lattes, Cappuccinos, and Espressos - will begin to ship...
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Mar 03, 2016
Foam parts are done!
Read more →Hey all, Great news: THE FOAM PARTS ARE DONE!!!! Here they are packed into boxes and ready to hop into a container destined for the Port of Oakland! In other news, the AMGEN Tour of California bicycle race rolled through Bonny Doon, right past our office. We used a GoPro-equipped Quadshot to take some aerial footage of the cyclists going by. No stunts like chasing after them though - we didn’t want anyone reporting UFO sightings :-P Lastly, we’re bringing a couple Quadshot prototypes to the Maker Faire Bay Area in San Mateo, CA this weekend, so if you’ll be...
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Mar 03, 2016
Foam is go!
Read more →Update time again, and we’ll keep it short and sweet: Fourth time’s the charm! (For foam at least) We’re happy to announce we’ve approved the foam tooling! It took almost five months and three rounds of test shots, but the results look great and we feel it’s been worth the wait. Production all the foam parts (wings, winglets, pylons, and spar covers) has been kicked off and will take about a week. Chris also had a cool idea to add some pieces that let you keep radio RX bays you’re not using covered for a cleaner look and better aero:...
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Mar 03, 2016
Production Update
Read more →Hello all, It’s about time for another update on our progress towards getting you your Quadshots! Foam Molding: First and Second Shots As we said in our last update, the foam ‘first shots’ (first test parts out of the molds) were originally scheduled to be completed February 20th, but the mold tooling company encountered some delays and took almost two extra weeks. On March 3rd (Jeff’s last full day in China) the molds had made it to the molding company and been mounted into the molding machine, and Jeff went to see the first shots get made: First shots are...
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Mar 03, 2016
Production has Started!
Read more →Hello all, We’ve had an incredibly busy few weeks, with production runs on your Quadshots finally under way! We received all the plastic parts from our US based plastics supplier, and here are the boxes with enough plastic parts for 400 Quadshots: The new and (post the prototype run we mentioned in the last update) slightly improved electronics box: Brand new off the molds! And 1600 ABS-PC pylon skeletons: The Lisa/Ms for the Espresso level awards also ran through their production run for the Kickstarter deliveries. Here we see them being assembled at Dallas Electronics, our Santa Cruz based...
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Mar 03, 2016
Plastics!
Read more →We received the first 25 pieces of the electronics enclosures, lids, and pylon ‘skeletons’ from the injection-molding company, and they are beautiful! The rest are in production and will arrive in about 10 days. Check 'em out: We just had to build a new wing to celebrate: Chris has been flying whenever the weather cooperates, and it was a beautiful day yesterday so we got out and shot some video that we will post ASAP. As a result of software updates and Pranay’s gain tuning, the Quadshot is flying even more smoothly and stably than before, and we’re also now...
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Mar 03, 2016
Lucky 13!
Read more →We’re excited to announce that we’ve kicked off production of the two major structural components of the Quadshot, namely the injection mold tooling for the plastic parts (e.g., center electronics box, lids, and reinforcing ‘skeletons’ for the pylons) and the mold tooling for all the EPP foam parts! Huzzah! And there was much rejoicing. As we said in the previous update, we chose an American plastic injection-molding company that specializes in fast turnaround and runs of less than 10,000 parts, so the mold machining and first sample plastic parts will only take 2 weeks or so to arrive. Once we...
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Mar 03, 2016
All kickstarter rewards have shipped!
Read more →We are incredibly happy to report that we've assembled, boxed, and shipped the last batch of Mochas, which mean that all of our Kickstarter rewards have been delivered!! If your Mocha is one of this last batch, you should have a Kickstarter message with the tracking number enclosed. We are now assembling the Mocha pre-orders (purchased on our web store) and will ship them in the next two weeks. Kickstarter has been an amazing journey for the four of us - we thank all of you again for your continual support and understanding! While in some ways the process felt like it...
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Mar 03, 2016
Quick Update
Read more →Quick Update: Mocha: Airframe assembly and testing continues - we’ve now put Lia brains into the first 20 Mochas, and are testing them individually to make sure we did everything right :-) Most excitingly, we have shipped the first ones! We will be shipping them out in the order they were pledged. Espresso: We received the Lisa/Ms and Aspirins with the new barometric pressure sensors, and Piotr got them all flashed, soldered together, serialized, and tested: We shipped out the first 18 Espressos and first Mocha (lower left) on Wednesday the 25th: Unfortunately, we are now hearing that we forgot...
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Mar 03, 2016
Shipping kits - and building lots of Quadshots
Read more →Hey all, since the container arrived we’ve been hard at work getting Quadshots assembled, boxed, and shipped out. Here’s the status of everything: Latte: Completed and shipped out on June 21! Cappuccino: Completed and shipped out on June 21! We know of one backer, Anton, that built his Cappuccino around a Lisa/M v1.0. He’s posted videos on youtube: maiden hovering flight and first mode 2 flight. We can’t wait to see more videos from all of you! Mocha: Obviously the biggest task - we’ve built about a third of the airframes so far. Chris is the assembly Zen master! On the electronics...