Software’s a long way from written, but this is the first look at the controller for the helicopter — The red thing is the 6DOF — it’s three axes of gyro sensors and three axes of accelerometers to determine the precise orientation and movement of the helicopter in flight so the main computer can figure out how to orient itself. Very slick product from Sparkfun– what I particularly like about this one is that there’s an on board atmega168– so all of the Kalman filtering and preprocessing is going on in the sub-board, and then the processed data is uploaded to the main board.

The rubber band (or gumband), I must say, is only temporary while I put together the elastic system to support the battery. Everything else is hot-glued down to the 3/32″ hobby plywood. The whole thing is going to be attached on top of the central core of the helicopter with screws and possibly some rubber or cork to dampen vibration from the four motors.