Adafruit loves DIY blimps! We’ve written about many Maker blimps (dirigibles) over the past 10+ years, they are just so cool. And they are ultra-affordable, often using materials already found around the house or at the party store.
What is a blimp? A blimp is a vehicle that uses a gas-filled bag to achieve lift into the atmosphere. You can think of a helium balloon with a string a tethered mini-blimp. Most blimps come with a control mechanism to be able to steer around. The controls don’t have to be electric, but they often are. Using a small motor (like drone motors), a blimp can move around in a controlled manner (similar to full-size blimps).
Would you like to explore projects which resulted in inexpensive controlled blimps? Here is a list of past and present Maker blimps for you to look through:
- air-powered blimp
- “Sub Micro” R/C Blimp
- 66-inch Indoor Blimp
- A Paper-Thin Arduino Enables DIY Dirigible
- Autonomous Flocking Blimps
- Gifts for Makers who like blimps
- Autonomous Light Air Vessels (ALAVs)
- Sophi Kravitz has been working on a controlled blimp with some great features
With the new Adafruit Crickit Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit board, we think some pretty robots can be built, especially blimps and other flying bots.
Keep an eye out for our design work with Crickit on the Adafruit blog.
Show us what blimp projects you know of or are working on in the comments below! Blimps = #MakeRobotFriend!