“We took the motors off a large hexacopter, attached them to a wooden frame, hooked up some batteries, and stuffed it all in a backpack. The results were better than expected!”
With only five minutes of battery life running flat out, the thrills are short lived but it’s cool to know you could potentially buy a hexacopter (expensive but obtainable) and rig up a DIY backpack propellor rig yourself. If you know any skiers that are also garage tinkerers makes sure to tag them:
“For those concerned about safety, you’ll be happy to know we put an elastic band over the throttle so if you let go, it should turn off (hopefully). The system uses two 12V, 12Ah lead acid batteries (like the kind used in mobility scooters) and the device can only run for about 5 minutes at full throttle. A lithium ion battery pack would be much better, but we just wanted to use parts we already had.”
