FreeBird One Scrapes Snow From Ground with Front/Rear Attachments
We mounted a "scraper" below the front and rear landing pads to dig into 12 inches of frozen-over snow on a driveway in order to loosen it so that the prop wash could blow the snow clear.
We show this as a demonstration of some of the unconventional uses that FreeBird One is capable of.
Our scraper was a first-iteration attempt at fabricating a tool like this. It was designed and 3D-printed with carbon fiber all in just a couple of hours.
As is typically the case when we design a new attachment like this, we learn from observing its performance and revise the design. Over 3-4 iterations, we could make this much more effective.
Our goal here is not to perfect snow scraping but rather to demonstrate the toughness of the frame, precision maneuvering, stability control by the autopilot while experiencing unusual forces on the airframe (trying to fly forward while the front scraper is stuck in snow it has dug into), and the ability to sustain collisions without destroying the drone or property.