3D Printable Quadcopter Hits Kickstarter

[Brian_Krassenstein]

A team out of Australia has brought to Kickstarter a proposal for 3D printing racing quadcopters. With years of racing experience under their belts and a passion for the fun of the chase, the three-person team is hoping to raise $6,000 AUD by November 9. The design, created with AutoDesk Inventor is made to have parts that are easily interchangeable with other quadcopter designs already available. More details o this 3D printabe quadcopter can be found here: http://3dprint.com/18822/3d-printed-quadcopter-design

Below is a picture of the quadcopter. What do you guys think?

[jtice]

I think its a rip off of the Hovership MHQ, so yea, I would think its pretty interchangeable.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:251002
Looks like they basically changed the top plate some. Dont see what there is anything to raise money for, just add that top place to the list of parts that are already on thingiverse for this quad.
There were tons of guys printing and selling the frame on RC forums for $25 to $30. Or you could purchase it directly from Hovership.
Maybe they are just trying to get it more available in mainstream market.

I had one, was a really nice frame, till I crashed it and destroyed it.
It was actually my first 3D Printed purchase, and re-sparked my interest in getting into 3D Printing.
Few months later, and here I am!

[richardphat]

I just can't see how they can sustain themselves. The kickstarter goal requires too little funding and we're talking about selling instead funding research. They had to re-design the hovership from scratch and make sure the parts are interchangeable with the HOvership MHQ.

Those would be sufficiant to ask 10k$+ goal and even more.
Not to mention the shipping cost. The project timeline is somewhat too idealistic, imho, I would push for an extra 2 months.

[lucastrick]

agree, i think its a rip off of the Hovership MHQ, so yea, I would think its pretty interchangeable

[richardphat]

From their quote

Is this project related to the Hovership? No. Whilst we did get some inspiration from various 3D printed copters such as the Hovership, and there are visual similarities between the FPV Quad Racer and the Hovership, we did create this in CAD ourselves, and choose to make the parts interchangable

[curious aardvark]

so are they selling the electronics (the expensive non-diy part) and then selling the design for self printing or selling the printed parts. Which they already have the designs for and don't need any money to start printing.

I just don't really get this kind of crowdfunding deal.

So where do these races happen - never heard of it before :-)

[brbubba]

From their quote

Just looking at the design for the base, arms, legs, etc., it's pretty clear they just copied it verbatim. Just because you modeled it from scratch doesn't mean it isn't a copy. Assuming the hovership creator actually files a report, I have no doubt it will be shut down in about 5 minutes. In case anyone needed to be shown the comparison, I attached the photos of the parts.

57e24af9366f18c7dda8c6057d1db896_large.jpg

1Q8A6923_preview_featured.jpg

[3rdeyepro]

Hello,
I am the creator of the Hovership MHQ. I have been in contact with Hai who has created this Kickstarter. He claims he drew all of the parts in Autodesk Inventor. I give out the SolidWorks source files on the thingiverse page. There is no way to prove he didn't perform some conversion process between my sources and his.

However, he sent me all his files. This photo sums up how close his design is to mine. My base plate in red, his in black. He changed some of the cutouts and parts of the main shape but all the mounting holes line up perfectly.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4jne7vwsg5...-copy.PNG?dl=0

When his Kickstarter first launched there was no mention of Hovership on the page. It wasn't until I called him out on the infringement of the non-commercial creative commons license that he started backtracking. His new story is that he made the parts compatible but yet still drew everything from scratch. It makes no sense why he would copy my design so closely instead of coming up with his own. Yet he still doesn't credit me for creating 75% of his design.

Another issue with his kickstarter is that most of his rewards are reselling off the shelf parts, which is against the kickstarter guidelines: https://www.kickstarter.com/rules/prohibited

I was about to release V2 of the MHQ design but with acts like this abusing the license it is making me think twice about being so generous.

[brbubba]

I can't really see how he is defending the design by sending you files. Even if he created it entirely from scratch it's still virtually identical which makes it infringing. You say 75%, I'd say closer to 95%.

Going forward, would this concern be alleviated by not releasing the solidpart files and just the STLs? It would certainly make any duplication much much harder to perform. The other option would be to sell the v2 design through your store front exclusively for 3-6 months and then release it as open source after that time period. At the end of the day I'd think that the goal would be to give you more freedom to design instead of wasting your time tracking these people down.

[3rdeyepro]

I can't really see how he is defending the design by sending you files. Even if he created it entirely from scratch it's still virtually identical which makes it infringing. You say 75%, I'd say closer to 95%.

Going forward, would this concern be alleviated by not releasing the solidpart files and just the STLs? It would certainly make any duplication much much harder to perform. The other option would be to sell the v2 design through your store front exclusively for 3-6 months and then release it as open source after that time period. At the end of the day I'd think that the goal would be to give you more freedom to design instead of wasting your time tracking these people down.

It is a trade-off. I gave away the source files because it has generated a lot of remix parts/designs on thingiverse and has made it even more popular. Still in the top 3 popular RC vehicles: http://www.thingiverse.com/explore/p...by/rc-vehicles

I think it is cool to see others building on my work, that is part of the open source mantra. But unfortunately some abuse this and don't give credit or try and profit off my generosity.