Fascinating! The “pants” part is a translation issue, but somehow is an evocative word for these strange flying ornithopters. Fascinating to watch!
Flying Pants – 3D printed Flapping Plane, from Hacked Gadgets:
I can see the wind up flying pants (translated) become an instant hit. In this prototype you see the parts were printed on a 3D printer and the wings are made of a thin plastic material. From a few seconds of winding up the rubber band the plane can get some great height and flight time. You can see some videos and pictures below of other similar creations that use the same concept but have added motors and RC control to remotely fly the flapping plane around. Not sure how the name Flying Pants came to be since it seems that the plane used to be called the X-Wing in earlier versions, I guess it doesn’t matter since the name will surly change before it is sold in North America. You can see on their blog that they are printing the parts using a MakerBot!
See some videos of the Flying pants below along with some other creative things they are experimenting with.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!