Post
by mrsteven » February 12th, 2013, 9:39 pm
"design," not really. Alot of this event comes down to your skill in fine details to get everything exactly in place. Another huge chunk of it is matching the rubber width and length to the helicopter you have. No two helicopters you make, even with identical plans, will be the same.
If you're looking for a general design, look through the image gallery. The parlor helicopter style is very popular. Its successful and more simply to build than an elliptical bladed helicopter (parlor is heliptical). The major differences between them are the "boxy" type blades VS the "egg" type blades. In theory, the elliptical design is more efficient and works better but it requires a HUGE amount of skill to make them correctly such that it gets a positive effect.
If you want a challenge, that is the way I would go. It is definitely interesting, but matching pitch to surface area and getting everything balanced with surface area proved more difficult of a task than I was up to the last couple years.
If you don't already have great modelling skills from prior experience/events, then the elliptical may prove difficult, but I would start on the heliptical front, if you can build/test/refine one of those, then you probably have the base skills needed to bump up to the next level. But I certainly did great with heliptical both years.
2011 Helicopters State Runner-up
2012 Helicopters State Champion
2013 Robot Arm State Champion