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Robotic Bird Resources

"The bird is an instrument that acts according to mathematical law, whose movements it is within our power to duplicate." - Leonardo da Vinci

The future of flapping-wing flight is in electronically controlled, robotic ornithopters. We are selling a pre-programmed servo controller that acts as the brain of your robotic RC bird. But some people will want to take a more active role. You can program the wing movements of the RC ornithopter yourself and experiment with different steering methods or more complicated designs. I created this resource page to help you get started with the new technology.
     Microcontroller Example
  • The Ornithopter Zone
    Ornithopter web site with info on how to build your own ornithopters.
  • BASIC Stamp Activity Kit
     This is a great starter pack that shows you how to program a microcontroller to move servos.
  • Arduino Programming
    Programming Electronics offers free lessons on how to program the popular Arduino microcontrollers.

There are many different microcontrollers on the market. They differ as to the cost, programming language, and the physical layout of the components. The BASIC Stamp type of microcontroller shown above is an easy way to get started, because of the simple programming language and availability of an educational starter kit. Robotics hobbyists also like to use the Arduino microcontrollers, because of many available resources and a more advanced programming language. Most of the Arduino boards are too large for our purposes, but the Arduino Mini is suitable for your RC ornithopters.