Armband Drone

Use nothing but your hands and an app to maneuver a drone

Comment

Inspiration

There was a struggle of controlling electric skateboards. Using conventional remote controlled handheld technology was a bit aggravating and cumbersome. From there, we switched to looking at control a drone instead, as we thought it would look really cool. Thus, we were interested in perhaps controlling a device but maybe without the remote and instead just our hands.

What it does

It allows you to control the movement of a small drone by moving your hands in certain motions in the air. These motions include forwards, backwards, up, down, left and right.

How we built it

Using a pre-built drone , we integrated the functionality of Myo onto an Android app that we built. We spent a lot of time experimenting with the Myo Armband to understand how it read positions and output of values.

Challenges we ran into

  • The Raspberry Pi did not come with a micro SD card, thus we had to shift from the skateboard idea to a drone
  • The documentation for the Myo Armband was not written very well
  • We had to downgrade our version of Gradle and Android Studio in order to use Myo with the Android app as there has been no development with Myo and Android in the three years
  • There were issues with getting Myo calibrate and properly be used and report accurate data
  • Some of the wiring in the drone became unsoldered, and the charging circuit nearly fried

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Getting it to properly work in all the intended motions
  • Getting to successfully build anything at a hackathon

What we learned

  • We learned how to use Myo, different concepts in java and Android, working with many libraries, and Bluetooth low energy.

What's next for the Armband Drone

  • Possible integration of the Myo Armband for skateboards.
  • Pre programmed flight patterns for certain arm movements
Share this project:

Updates