I've been working or rather thinking of a new version of my Torus machine (old one) to use in water. This time it will be driven by the NG-UAVP Quadrocopter board that has the potential to use up to 16 motors, I will use eight. Here is a first rough little sketch of the concept:
It is starts to looks a bit like the Wheel of Dharma, a symbol that represents dharma, the Buddha's teaching of the path to enlightenment. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmacakra)
Anyway, I'm planning to steer this machine by adjusting the speed of the motors at defined positional points. Roughly the concept is when the machine spins at full speed and I would like to turn it to the right, that the rotors that pass through the blue Zone B are slowed down to 50 rpm, those that pass through the opposite red Zone D are accelerated to 150 rpm and those that move through the neutral grey Zones A-C keep their norma velocity of 100 rpm. The difference in velocity would make the spinning torus swing to the right. Here is a short clip of how the color fields would be set Software-wise while the construction spins round:
Note: if you are an engineer of some sorts and would like to help building this thing, let me know, all help is welcome, because this one might be waaay too difficult for me to do.
