Flexible monocopter drone can be completely rolled up
I tried to do a similar thing with a single actuator frisbee.   The goal would be a frisbee with a single fin could fly anywhere when launched out of some high power launcher.<p>The goal was to make a single-use aircraft which could go anywhere in a city for under $1.  By making the aircraft unpowered and under 250g, lots of regulations no longer apply, and it becomes practical to use them to deliver small items.<p>The fin was actuated by a 10 cent microcontroller using a ultra low cost GPS and light sensor (for sun position), powered for up to 2 minutes by a coin cell.<p>The challenge was that it seems gyroscopic effects means that if a frisbee has lift and moves forward in the air, it will always see a (very slow) turning moment that requires a  massive fin to counteract.  The end result is the frisbee eventually turns to vertical and falls out of the air.<p>My prototype could still land gently anywhere in a football field when thrown by hand, which I was pretty pleased with, and had a BOM under $1!<p>If anyone has any ideas to make this not happen, I'd like to hear them.