4 ms·

Maybe the next step is to walk a path with it once and then have it repeat it. I often have groceries delivered that require me to walk a dozen times to my base

Maybe the next step is to walk a path with it once and then have it repeat it. I often have groceries delivered that require me to walk a dozen times to my basement to stow it away. If I have to do it once for "teaching" and then repeat it 11 more times, that would be a win. Also, as a reminder to the "do you even lift, bro" crowd, there is an increasing number of aging people with declining physical strength that could potentially benefit from a product like this. Yes, with current drone technology this is too noisy / turbulent / energy inefficient to be entirely practical, but how many of these limits are due to fundamental physics constraints and how many still have quite a bit of room for expansion?

Zababa 2y ago
Agree that people could benefit from it. However: > Also, as a reminder to the "do you even lift, bro" crowd, there is an increasing number of aging people with declining physical strength that could potentially benefit from a product like this. These people would benefit from lifting too. Physical decline seems inevitable, but its speed seems malleable.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > These people would benefit from lifting too. Physical decline seems inevitable, but its speed seems malleable. Not for those who're already at the point of needing things like that. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... except if you're already sick.
stackghost 2y ago
>how many of these limits are due to fundamental physics constraints All of them. Even with a 10x increase in battery energy density, you still need to move the same volume of air to generate enough upward thrust for a given weight.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- robotresearcher 2y ago
  Yeah, and that’s a very large volume of air for most interesting payloads. You have to move the same mass of air as the vehicle mass plus the payload mass. That’s a lot of air. Running UAVs indoors in a normal sized room quickly starts large air currents that have to be faught by blowing more air…
  - stackghost 2y ago
    Yes, that phenomenon is called the vortex ring state and it's a big problem in rotorcraft.

Zababa 2y ago

Agree that people could benefit from it. However: > Also, as a reminder to the "do you even lift, bro" crowd, there is an increasing number of aging people with declining physical strength that could potentially benefit from a product like this. These people would benefit from lifting too. Physical decline seems inevitable, but its speed seems malleable.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
> These people would benefit from lifting too. Physical decline seems inevitable, but its speed seems malleable. Not for those who're already at the point of needing things like that. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... except if you're already sick.

stackghost 2y ago

>how many of these limits are due to fundamental physics constraints All of them. Even with a 10x increase in battery energy density, you still need to move the same volume of air to generate enough upward thrust for a given weight.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
robotresearcher 2y ago
Yeah, and that’s a very large volume of air for most interesting payloads. You have to move the same mass of air as the vehicle mass plus the payload mass. That’s a lot of air. Running UAVs indoors in a normal sized room quickly starts large air currents that have to be faught by blowing more air…
- stackghost 2y ago
  Yes, that phenomenon is called the vortex ring state and it's a big problem in rotorcraft.