So Crash Hancock recently issued a cheapie quadcopter challenge. He did a great job on a cheap blue wonder based propulsion system, and of course the $15 flip control board is the obvious way to go.
He ended up paying less than $10 for the frame parts... quite good, but it occurred to me you could do better. While mulling this over and trying to think of cheap arms, I happened to notice some rulers in our office copy room.
Eureka! They were just the right length, and using some jumbo clips held them together nicely. I had some a zip tie sitting around, so after clipping everything together I wound a zip tie around everything. As you can see, it makes a very stylish looking X copter, with about a 30 second build time! Surprisingly, it's a very stiff frame, and very crashproof (I think), since everything will just pop apart, ready to be reassembled.
I was planning to screw the motor mounts onto the arms, but it occurred to me that they would look pretty odd when I returned them to the supply cabinet. No problem, a couple of more clips hold the motor perfectly. And several cents saved on fasteners! As soon as I get some more motors and a flip controller, I'll finish it out. Until then, everything back into the cabinet, ready to be reassembled!
