Are you feeling curious?

Yeah!

Today on Curious Crew.

the discombobulated blades.

We have some very uplifting investigation.

You, as a team are going to build your own mini drones.

The sky's the limit as we explore drone science.

It's time for us now to take flight.

Support for Curious Crew is provided by MSU Federal Credit Union, offering a variety of accounts for children and teens of all ages while teaching lifelong saving habits.

More information is available at MSUFCU.org also by the Consumers Energy Foundation, dedicated to ensuring Michigan residents have access to world class educational resources by investing in nonprofits committed to education and career readiness.

More information is available at ConsumersEnergy.com/foundation And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Rob Stephenson and this is Curious Crew.

Welcome to the show everybody.

We always like to start every episode with a couple of discrepant events because discrepant events stimulate curiosity.

That's exactly right.

And I've got some fun ones for you today.

In fact, I want to point out I have a little quadcopter here, a little drone.

And Ilaria, I've got a question for you.

How does this thing fly?

Well, I think it works by these propellers start moving and that pushes the air particles down, making the drone go up.

Okay.

And notice how many propellers there are.

There are four.

And if you look at them close, they're all horizontal.

So that kind of would make sense.

If it could push air particles down, then we could get some upward thrust right.

Let's lift this off.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Let's check out some maneuvers, shall we?

Oh, Oh, okay.

That was awesome.

And we'll let this one land.

Awesome.

Now I've got another one here I want to point out to you.

And first of all, Emmanuel, what do you notice about this one?

This one is circular.

Okay?

And the propellers are kind of like a case thing.

Okay, so it's a little cage in there, right?

So I'm going to turn this little switch on, get some lights going on and wait for it to turn green.

There it is.

Now, this one's very unpredictable.

Julia, put a hand out.

Oh, my.

We're going to let that fly for a moment.

And I'm going to ask you to think about these discrepant events, because I'd like three of you to do a little scientific modeling to see if you can explain these phenomena by the end of the show.

Who would like to take part in a little modeling moment today?

Okay.

Ben, Xanna, Nicholas.

Now I've got one more question.

Anybody have a guess what I'm going to be investigating today?

What do you think, Will?

What do you think?

Drone science That is exactly right.

We're talking drone science.

Stick around.

Fasten your belt because it's time for liftoff.

Let's see if you can figure this out.

I never thought about drone flight before.

How can horizontal propellers make a move in so many different ways?

I know, I think we need to look at the propellers themselves.

That handy commander was pretty cool.

But did you see anybody controlling it?

No, I was wondering if they got pre-programed.

A drone is an incredible innovation that has many purposes today, but building a pilotless craft that could be controlled to take off and come back has been a challenge engineers have been working on since flight began.

Today, there are many kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles that come in different shapes and sizes.

Some have wings, some have rotors.

But quadcopter drones are especially fun because they are so maneuverable.

Wow.

You did a loop the loop.

So weren't those discrepant events interesting, you guys?

Yeah.

Okay.

Now, if we want to make sense of this, we're going to start by looking at some blades.

This is kind of an interesting point here.

I've got we're called helicopter discs over here, and then we have some blades from drones, but these are really big blades.

Now, Ilaria, I'm just going to ask you, compare the blades, what are you noticing when you look at this?

So what I notice is that all of the blades actually they're angled, but the blades over here, they're just straight in.

They're kind of one thing while these blades, they have this circle, but they still have all the blades.

Okay.

So we've got the sort of combined tri blade over here.

But you notice something really important, the fact that they're all angled.

Now, I got a question for you.

Sagan, why would that be important if we got angled blades.

So that it pushes the air down when they spin fast enough?

Oh, okay.

So I say we try this, I'm going to place this right on here and I'm going to pull this little ripcord and see if we get enough energy that we get lift off.

You ready?

Let's see how we do.

Oh, it's really good.

That was really good.

Quite a flight.

How about that?

Now we're going to launch one of our drones here, one of our quadcopters.

And Ava I want you to watch it closely and see if you can make a comparison between the flight of that with the helicopter disc.

Ready?

Oh, my.

So what are you noticing, Ava?

It's kind of just staying in place rather.

Than just going up and down.

Okay, that's great.

Now, what if we wanted it to go up?

What do you think we need to do?

Add more energy so the blades spin faster?

Okay, let's do that.

Add a little more energy.

Nice.

And what if we reduce the energy watch?

What happens if we slow the blades down?

Isn't that amazing?

Now, of course, when we had our helicopter blades, we ran out of energy because the momentum eventually stopped and it fell back down.

Here.

We've got the on board battery and of course, we have to do one quick fly out.

I think.

So let's give it a little more energy going up.

The crew saw how the disc helicopter could fly, but have you ever seen a real helicopter?

Most helicopters have a big horizontal propeller on the top and a second smaller vertical one on the tail.

The top blade provides lift and forward thrust when angled, but the rear blade makes it possible to turn side to side.

Now, drones, they don't have vertical propellers, so how do they turn?

Looks like we better figure that out.

Are you curious about careers in science?

Hi, I'm Callan, and today I'm here with Kara Murphy.

Take off, Kara, Can you tell us where we are and what you do?

Hi, Callan.

We're here in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I am a professional remote pilot and a freelance writer covering drones.

Landing.

What are drones used for?

Drones are used for aerial photography, aerial videography, as well as mapping inspections, surveillance, search and rescue.

And they can even collect snot from a whale.

Whoa.

I'm going to control the drone, and you can control the camera, and you won't have any stress of navigating this thing, but you get to have all the fun.

Yeah.

What aspects of STEM are used in drone piloting?

There are various parts of STEM that are involved with drones.

We're talking about physics and the drone center of gravity.

So the pitch, the role, the yaw.

With technology, the remote control, the sensors, the GPS, engineering comes down to the drones design as well as the maintenance.

And then also mathematics is involved, basically developing tools for navigation.

Are you ready to fly?

Absolutely.

All right.

Let's do it.

Let's go.

So you just put the joysticks down in the corner, get the rotors up.

And you slowly lift up.

Wow.

There it goes.

There it goes.

And I have a complete view.

Why are you so passionate about flying drones?

Well, for me personally, I like that the technology is always developing.

But as a photographer and a videographer, I'm able to get the full picture.

No pun intended, but I am able to get up high and see things that I normally wouldn't be able to view from the ground.

Wooo!

Hey, up there.

Drone pilot Karen Murphy took my STEM knowledge to new heights.

Explore your possibilities.

And now back to Curious Crew.

So I've got another investigation for you.

You'll see we got another drone and I also have a little balsa wood airplane.

And first thing I'm going to ask you Emmanuel.

Tell me the difference that you're noticing between these two as far as flight and how they're designed.

This has wings and the tail.

And its a lot slimmer than that one.

And that one has a lot more propellers.

And cages around it.

Oh, okay.

Cages around the four propellers over there.

And actually, those ones are really interesting because they're separated.

So it's almost like there's eight propellers there that fly out once it starts moving.

The interesting thing to notice here, the direction that this propellers going, this one up and down.

Right.

Whereas those ones are horizontal.

So Ben tell me how this thing might fly.

I think when you turn the propeller, and the rubber band starts to foil up.

Okay.

It is creating energy and once you let go of the energy, it will fly.

Oh, I think we should try it.

I think we should try it.

Give us a little bit of a launch here.

Oh, yeah, that was pretty good.

Now, I've got a question for you, Julia.

We saw the effect of the air particles getting pushed back over the wings in the tail.

So that made a lot of sense.

Where are the wings and tail on this?

That's a really good question.

Do you have an answer?

No.

This is the part that's so strange.

Drones fly without wings.

There's no wings, there's no tail.

We just have propellers.

And so these propellers are doing everything, which is amazing.

Let's lift this off and I'll show you what I mean, because this can have some really interesting maneuvers.

Now, watch it close, because we're going to change direction relatively quickly.

And I want you to share with me what you notice tilting.

Okay.

See?

So nice.

So you're seeing how it's going to slant.

Excellent.

All right.

We're going to descend and land this one.

Excellent.

Okay.

So you really notice something important.

If we want to speed up two propellers, it ends up going a little higher.

And we can change direction.

It's starting to cut into the air.

If we do the opposite two this side gets higher and it cuts back.

Amazing.

Just with four propellers or in this case, eight, we can have all kinds of maneuverability.

Fixed wing drones fly like an airplane by moving air, going over the wings and tail to stay in flight.

So just like our toy airplane, they must keep moving and they can't hover in one place.

Quadcopter drones use the speed of independent rotors to lift off the ground, hover in place, or move in any direction by speeding up one pair of rotors.

The faster side lifts a bit and then pushes the drone forward.

This means Quadcopters can make very precise maneuvers in the air.

See you later.

Behind the scenes.

Of the show is honestly, so cool.

Two, One.

Mic, Cue Rob.

Hi, I'm Rob Stephenson and this is Curious Crew.

Remembering like how surreal it felt coming into the studio the first time, being like there are cameras everywhere.

Ian!

No!

Isnt that awesome!

the atmosphere is super fun on set and off set.

We're only there together for like a day, but yet we still become very bonded even if you're just meeting them for the first time.

Everyone always has such a positive attitude.

Some of the fun things that we get to do is filming on the green screen or even just running around and dancing in the hallway.

Cha-Cha-Cha Cha-Cha A lot of people don't have the opportunity to meet the people behind the scenes or get to see how much goes on behind the show.

And there's so much going on and it's incredible to see how much hard work people put into it.

Take one.

They are the ones that make it the most fun and the most enjoyable too.

Stay Curious!

STEM Challenge So have you been having fun investigating drone science today?

Yeah.

Awesome.

And of course I have the perfect challenge for you.

You as a team are going to build your own mini drones.

You've got some materials.

I think you're ready to start your build.

You guys ready?

Yeah.

Go for it.

Okay, so we got to get these attached.

Make sure you have the right ones in?

Yeah, I'll put the guards in.

You can get started on that controller if you want.

Dr.

Rob had us building drones and I had really fun with it because you had to figure out was there brain how to work it and stuff?

I never thought I would make my own drone because it's always seemed like some really hard thing to do.

The battery is in.

Wow, that's a lot of wires.

The materials we're using are two sets of blades, the plastic shell, a battery pack, plus the controller itself, which is made out of plastic.

It has two double AA batteries in it.

And you got the batteries in here.

Making the drone is pretty fun and also very frustrating because we had four propellers, A propellers and B, propellers.

Oh, these have letters on them.

We had to match them up with the corresponding letter on the drone.

That was very frustrating because the letters were also very tiny.

One last one, and I'll hand it off to you and the propellers.

We tried to get the blade cover on and we dropped the screw.

it's like hide and seek with the screw.

The parts were really small and that kept on dropping the parts.

I don't know why.

I cannot put the screw in.

Whered it go?

This investigation is incredibly fun because you get you get to build drones.

Okay, It's in now.

This is my first time building a drone, so it's fun to look at the parts and details (makes buzzing sound) Its broken now.

I think our drone is going to work.

We eventually got all of our parts together and hopefully it flies.

They're tilted the different way and I think that kind of helps it pick up the air.

I hope it flies.

That's all I can say.

I really hope it flies.

I think we did good.

Yeah.

Same.

I did it.

All right, These are looking pretty good.

I think it's time to clear some space and we can test them out.

What do you think?

Yeah.

This is going to be a lot of fun.

All right, So it looks like we're ready to test the drones, and we're going to start with your team first.

Sagan, you ready to fire it up?

Yes.

All right.

Let's give it a whirl.

See if we can get this thing hovering there.

Oh, yes.

That's awesome.

Can you land it?

Well done.

All right, let's try another one.

So we've had one successful flight.

Let's take a look at yours.

Ilaria, are you ready?

Okay, let's give that a whirl.

Oh, yes.

Look at that.

Good hover action.

Oh, that looks fantastic.

Yep.

You can land it.

Well done.

Another successful flight.

Good job.

So two successful flights so far Let's see how the last one goes.

Go ahead.

Give it a whirl, Xanna.

Oh.

Oh, yeah.

Looking good.

Looking good.

Go ahead.

Lower it down.

Excellent job.

Well done.

So we had three successful flights.

You can try building your own mini drone, get yourself a kit and have some fun building it.

Don't you think they should try it, you guys?

Yeah.

Too much fun.

Drones have many sensors on board.

There are accelerometers that detect speed and direction, altimeters that measure altitude, obstacle sensors to avoid colliding with other objects.

And they sometimes have cameras on board.

This makes it possible for a remote pilot to see from the drones perspective and take photographs or videos.

They can even be equipped with lights for aerial light shows.

The entire show can be programed with computer software that commands many drones through choreographed maneuvers all set to music.

Now that's entertainment.

Okay, So we've got a couple more drones here as well as four propellers.

First thing I want to ask you Will, is can you visually inspect these drones?

And you tell me if they look like they're ready to take off?

Looks good.

Okay.

Let's do this one first.

We're going to fire this one up.

Oh, that was odd.

Okay, maybe we should try it one more time and give it a little bit more room.

Oh, okay.

Something is clearly wrong here.

Yeah.

Okay.

What might be wrong with this, Xanna?

What do you think?

Are the blades put on the right spots?

Oh, you're thinking the discombobulated blades.

In fact, they're not.

Visually, we don't really notice this, it looks like yeah, it's probably fine.

However, we also now know that there is an A side and a B side.

Let's look at these big blades to get a good sense of this so you can see how two of them match here, two of them match here.

But if you notice, the angle is opposite.

That's because two of the blades spin clockwise and two of the blades spin counterclockwise.

And if we don't put them in the right position, it can't take off.

Okay, let's try this one instead.

Okay.

And we'll give this a little energy as well.

Okay.

There we go.

So now let's think about this.

If we know that opposite blades are going to be doing something similar, that means we can change its maneuverability by speeding up or slowing down pairs of blades, right?

Yeah.

If I speed up one side, we can make it travel.

That opposite way.

If I speed up the other, I can make it travel the opposite direction.

Exactly.

And we can even rotate it around But here's a question for you, Nicolas.

What would happen if we make a really big imbalance between two sides?

It will flip over and it won't fly.

Oh, let's see about flipping over.

Let's see if we can get a big imbalance here.

Oh, isn't that amazing?

Okay, Whenever you're practicing flying a drone, you want to practice a slow descent.

We're going to bring it down.

Nice, slow, and let it land.

And here's why.

If you do it too fast, it sometimes can push the air particles right out of the way underneath.

It's called a vortex ring, and your drone can actually fall right out of the sky.

Practice your slow descent.

Pretty impressive.

Drones are fun and entertaining, but they're also useful.

They can be used to deliver packages as well as deliver food and medicine to remote areas.

Farmers use them to map crop land and maintain healthy plants.

Drone cameras are used for sporting events, news coverage, surveillance, making movies, monitoring animal population and selling houses.

Drones are even being developed with sticky surfaces to pollinate flowers and help farmers and bees.

A lot of drone research ideas are getting explored.

Perhaps you will come up with the next great drone innovation.

Are you curious about careers in science?

Hi, I'm Janellyn.

This is Janellyn.

It's Janellyn.

Are you curious about careers in science?

I know I am.

Being on curious about careers.

It's just been amazing.

I've gotten to interview some people in careers I didn't even know existed until I got to interview them.

And there's a career out there for everyone.

What I want other girls to take away from curious about careers is to show them what's out there.

Oooh!

At the end of each segment, I always say a little puny line.

I had an eye opening experience.

Spending my spare time, gotta jet.

It's always a lot of fun trying to think about what I'm going to say and how it's going to relate and always say “Explore your possibilities.” The whole purpose of that is to encourage people to explore what they love and to just keep asking questions and keep learning.

I had an awesome time.

I had a wonderful time and culture fun time.

I had a wonderful time I had an ultra fun time.

Explore your possibilities.

And now back to Curious Crew.

So we know the rotors are making all the movements possible.

Right.

If we speed up different pairs of propellers we can get it to move forward, back or rotate.

That makes sense because the faster propellers lift that side higher.

So you can't cut into the air.

Exactly.

The hand commander must do that, too, but must be using sensors to avoid obstacles.

So if you had fun investigating drone science today.

Yeah.

I'm so glad we now have to return to our discrepant events to see if you can explain to us what's going on here.

Let's start with you, Ben.

How about this levitating copter?

Whatd you figure out.

It makes sense that the horizontal propellers make the drone go up in the air?

But we think that the rotational movement of the propellers and its speed let it move throughout the room.

Right.

Because the propeller pairs spin opposite ways the drone can rotate and changing the speeds of the propeller pairs can make it go forward or backward.

Okay.

So you guys have really given this some thought.

We have four propellers that are able to do all of these maneuvers.

And that seems really strange because, of course, it just seems like it should just lift up and go back down.

But we've seen how it can rotate how and go side to side and even go right into a flip.

Amazing.

But we also know there's an onboard gyroscope and that's what is able to keep things balanced and sends stability information to the drone itself.

What have we figured out about the handy Commander, Xanna?

well didn't see any controller for this drone, so we think that there must be some sensors that respond to your hand.

Yeah, it moves when it gets too close to objects or even when it gets too high.

Awesome.

So you notice that when I put my hand under it and even when Julia put her hand under it, how it took off even higher.

Interesting thing about this.

You might have noticed when I first turned it on, I wiggled it.

Did you notice that?

And then I put it down on the table that was actually calibrating it.

So it was getting level and it was ready for its first flight.

This is a great first drone because, as Emmanuel pointed out, all of the blades are inside the cage, which means you can grab it and not hurt yourself.

And the funny thing is, once you grab it and turn it over, it turns itself off, which is kind of neat, but it is pretty unpredictable.

You guys did a great job with drone science today.

I hope you had fun.

It's time for us now to take flight.

So remember, my friends, stay curious and keep experimenting.

Get your curiosity guide and see more programs at wkar.org Support for curious Crew is provided by MSU Federal Credit Union, offering a variety of accounts for children and teens of all ages while teaching lifelong saving habits.

More information is available at MSUFCU.org also by the Consumers Energy Foundation, dedicated to ensuring Michigan residents have access to world class educational resources by investing in nonprofits committed to education and career readiness.

More information is available at ConsumersEnergy.com/foundation and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Curious Crew!

Welcome to the show, everybody.

We always like to start every episode with a couple.

Which one I'm one thing to everybody I know I was thinking if it got pre program no no that's the right line though.

Yeah.

You did it.

High five.

(Laughs) that's hilarious.