Gamera II: University of Maryland’s Human-Powered Helicopter, Closes In on the Sikorsky Prize

Students at the University of Maryland are working on a human-powered helicopter, called Gamera II. Their goal is the prize – a $250,000 award, given under the conditions that a human-powered helicopter: hovers for one minute, achieves an altitude of 3 meters, and stays within a constrained box of 10 feet.

So far, the prize has been unclaimed for over 30 years.

But they’re getting very, very close:

The passion/dedication I see in this video reminds me a lot of Float, a documentary about free-flight duration aircraft.

[via MetaFilter]

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