I think I may have posted about this before, but in case you want to take a few minutes away from furiously building robots to see something awesome, a group in Toronto is trying to win the Sikorsky Prize. That is a human powered helicopter that flies for 60 seconds, reaches a height of 3 meters, and stays within a 10m square.
Video of their best trimming test flight so far (5 ft height, 30 second duration)
They have kept a blog for the post several months as they’ve been working which is here. What makes their helicopter particularly interesting is that it has active controls – every other attempt has tried to stay in the box by a hope and a prayer.
The University of Maryland also has one that is tantalizing close to winning as well.