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From: horton@molbio.cbs.umn.edu (Robert Horton)
Subject: Re: PROPOSAL: A robotic Butterlfy!
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Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 17:42:18 GMT
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Mark C. Langston (umlangston@cc.memphis.edu) wrote:
: 
:   The other day, I was sitting around thinking about a recent MondoTronics
: catalogue I received.  Inside, they had an ad for a kit that looked like
: a robotic butterfly.  It couldn't fly, of course.  But, this got me
: thinking:  Why can't one be built?  As long as wing/body size and weight
: ratios are kept constant, why not?
:
As they said to Orville and Wilbur, it'll never fly.

Several problems:
1) batterys are way heavy - do they even make battery powered toy
airplanes? The ones I've seen are either rubber band or gas powered.
(How about solar cells? Then it would have a reason to seek light.)

2) Flapping wings are (I guess) a fairly complicated way to
fly. There is a toy bird that flys by flapping its wings, though...
(rubber band powered). 

Still, if you build one, I'd love to see it! Its a neat idea.

-Bob
 
