The human-powered helicopter in flight.33 years ago, the American Helicopter Society established the Igor I. Sikorsky Human-Powered Helicopter Prize—which called for a team to design and build a working, non-motorized helicopter that could fly above three metres for a minute or longer. It took over three decades to successfully meet the challenge, but the prize was finally won this past weekend by the University of Toronto’s Human Powered Vehicle Design Team which, along with having a sweet new pedal-powered helicopter, took home $250,000 to reinvest in their laboratory and pay off their various investors.Since this whole story is basically dripping in good vibes, I went to visit the Human Powered Vehicle lab just off of the U of T campus in Toronto to discuss the aftermath of completing an extremely difficult scientific challenge—with Dr. Todd Reichert and Cameron Robertson—and to see what they’re up to now (hint: it rhymes with bead tikes).VICE: So what attracted you guys to this prize in the first place?
Cameron: We started working together on a human-powered ornithopter, the Snowbird, in 2006, which flew in 2010. For the next two years, I was in industry and Todd was finishing his PhD. And then we saw Gamera, the team in the US testing and said, “This looks like a really cool challenge and a neat endeavour. For 30 years, no one's been able to do it, and we'd like to give it a shot.” And then we looked at the value of the prize, and realized it could be a breakeven proposition in which everybody wins. Not only are we showcasing innovation—students are getting an excellent learning experience, and we're able to work on something we love, while getting out our message and encouraging people to do the impossible and to do more with less. It pretty much hit all of our hot buttons.How do you think attaching a prize to a challenge like this can advance scientific progress?
Todd:This is a great example, and the X Prize is also a good example. This is obviously something a lot of people wanted to do, but as soon as you put a prize to it, it spurs people to actually go do it. There were tons of teams—several dozen teams around the world for the past 30 years—working on this project. Each of those teams is gathering together a group of bright individuals, trying to figure out creative solutions to their problems. If you paid a research institute a quarter of a million dollars, you wouldn't be able to get as much innovation as you did from getting all these different teams to work on this. So it's an amazing way to get all these people around the team pushing.
Cameron and Todd, working on some cool shit. Photos by Michael Toledano.Did the competition between teams ever get weird when you were still trying to win?
Todd: Yeah, it was a really weird situation being so neck and neck with Gamera [the team in Maryland who was also competing]. We kept neck and neck, and each time our helicopter was in the middle of testing, we tried to coincide our flights, to make sure that when we were testing, so was Gamera. We were both very close the whole time. We had a lot of discussion with them, but there were a lot of things we kept secret. For example, neither of us were sharing our control strategies. But I visited them Christmas of last year, and in June when they did their last round of flight-testing. We've had a lot of communication despite the intense competition.Did you get a call from them when you guys finally won?
Todd:Yeah, we actually called them up the day we won.“Sorry, guys. It's over!”
Cameron:We had been in close communication and didn't want them to find out the wrong way, especially if they were going into more testing, we didn't want them to kill themselves and destroy their aircraft.Todd: The human-powered vehicle community is really open to sharing information. When we first got into it, we went to visit teams that had been working on this in the 70s and 80s and 90s, and they were willing to share everything. One thing a prize does do is that all of a sudden, people want to be a little more secretive about some things. At the same time, both us and the Ganera team were as open as we could be about everything we didn't feel would lead the other team to win. It's a difficult balance, I guess.Without getting really technical, were there any moments when you were like, “Fuck this, this isn't working”? What were some of the big walls you hit?
Cameron: The control system was probably the most salient example of that. We had started with this idea that we would vary the lift on the opposing rotors in order to get the helicopter to tilt and then start to drift one direction or the other. This was done with small control surfaces on the tips of each of the rotors. But through the first two weeks of testing we did and early in the winter, we realized that was an untenable system, that there was nothing to do to make it workThe solution we ended up adopting was very simple. Basically, instead of varying the opposing rotor's lift, the pilot leans the bike, and by leaning the bike, it pulls on lines attached to the bottoms of the rotor posts, and that tilts the thrusts of the rotors, which gives you an instantaneous and very large sideways force. It's very intuitive and simple, and we save like, six to eight pounds off the helicopter.That's interesting. Probably more organic to control, too.
Cameron: Oh yeah, it's so cool, you just lean where you want to go, and you can feel it responding instantly. It's amazing. It's not a solution we had thought of from the get go. It wasn't until we started flying that we saw how flexible this thing was.So, this is obviously the most advanced human-powered helicopter ever made, but when you look at it, the thing is massive. It’s 150 feet wide. What is it going to take to get a personal, human-powered helicopter? Is that possible?
Todd: I will be the first to say that nothing is impossible. I can't envision how we would make it small enough at this point.Why does it have to be so big?
Cameron: It's much more efficient to push down lightly on a large amount of air than it is to push really hard on a small amount of air. So the power required varies directly with how big the rotor disk is. If you weigh 160 pounds, you have to lift that, which requires a massive disk area.So people aren't going to be taking pedalcopters to work anytime soon?
Todd: No, not quite. I wish I could answer that better.
Speed bike shells.Well, alright then. It appears you guys are moving on to speed bikes… What is a speed bike?
Todd: A speed bike is a recumbent bicycle that is covered in a composite aerodynamic shell that is capable of highway speeds. Some of our bikes have been up to 120 km/h, and the next bike is designed for up to 140km/h. Every year, we go to the world human-powered speed challenge out in Battle Mountain, Nevada.Battle Mountain? Are you fucking kidding me? That’s a sweet name.
Todd: It's unfortunately a bit of a decrepit mining town. It's economically depressed, as is most of the US.Cameron: Battle Mountain is where everyone goes. It's this five mile stretch of road where dreams are made. There are teams from France, Russia, the Netherlands, Canada, the US, and Australia—who go and bring the fastest technology in the world. The competition is really heating up. The current record has stood for a few years and hopefully this year, we or another team break it. The speed bikes are interesting because not only are they 140 km/h which is faster than driving a car, it's also that out of all the technologies we work on, these have the most potential for practical application. You could commute with them in the future, it could be part of the next generation of personal transport. That would be interesting to see.
"I don't often ride a bicycle… But when i do it's always over 100km/h"Why do you guys want to keep making crazy, human powered vehicles in the first place?
Cameron: Well, part of the exciting thing we're doing with the speed bikes is focusing on student learning. The whole team out there are all University of Toronto and Ryerson engineering students, and imbuing in the next generation of engineers the concept of lightweight design for efficient engineering is one of the drivers. It's not the vehicles themselves. Commercializing them isn't our goal. We want young people out there to see nothing is impossible and that undertaking a great challenge for the thrill of it can lead to some incredible things.It's also important to understand where all our support came from. There's been a partnership with the University of Toronto, corporate sponsorships, a few research grants, as well as a Kickstarter fundraising campaign—this kind of grassroots innovation does need the public’s support, their sympathy, and their help. This wasn't in a vacuum, it took the support of the whole community.And it worked! Good news all-round.Follow Patrick on Twitter: @patrickmcguireAlso:Canadian Scientists Built a Virtual Map of the Human Brain
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Cameron: We started working together on a human-powered ornithopter, the Snowbird, in 2006, which flew in 2010. For the next two years, I was in industry and Todd was finishing his PhD. And then we saw Gamera, the team in the US testing and said, “This looks like a really cool challenge and a neat endeavour. For 30 years, no one's been able to do it, and we'd like to give it a shot.” And then we looked at the value of the prize, and realized it could be a breakeven proposition in which everybody wins. Not only are we showcasing innovation—students are getting an excellent learning experience, and we're able to work on something we love, while getting out our message and encouraging people to do the impossible and to do more with less. It pretty much hit all of our hot buttons.How do you think attaching a prize to a challenge like this can advance scientific progress?
Todd:This is a great example, and the X Prize is also a good example. This is obviously something a lot of people wanted to do, but as soon as you put a prize to it, it spurs people to actually go do it. There were tons of teams—several dozen teams around the world for the past 30 years—working on this project. Each of those teams is gathering together a group of bright individuals, trying to figure out creative solutions to their problems. If you paid a research institute a quarter of a million dollars, you wouldn't be able to get as much innovation as you did from getting all these different teams to work on this. So it's an amazing way to get all these people around the team pushing.
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Todd: Yeah, it was a really weird situation being so neck and neck with Gamera [the team in Maryland who was also competing]. We kept neck and neck, and each time our helicopter was in the middle of testing, we tried to coincide our flights, to make sure that when we were testing, so was Gamera. We were both very close the whole time. We had a lot of discussion with them, but there were a lot of things we kept secret. For example, neither of us were sharing our control strategies. But I visited them Christmas of last year, and in June when they did their last round of flight-testing. We've had a lot of communication despite the intense competition.Did you get a call from them when you guys finally won?
Todd:Yeah, we actually called them up the day we won.“Sorry, guys. It's over!”
Cameron:We had been in close communication and didn't want them to find out the wrong way, especially if they were going into more testing, we didn't want them to kill themselves and destroy their aircraft.Todd: The human-powered vehicle community is really open to sharing information. When we first got into it, we went to visit teams that had been working on this in the 70s and 80s and 90s, and they were willing to share everything. One thing a prize does do is that all of a sudden, people want to be a little more secretive about some things. At the same time, both us and the Ganera team were as open as we could be about everything we didn't feel would lead the other team to win. It's a difficult balance, I guess.
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Cameron: The control system was probably the most salient example of that. We had started with this idea that we would vary the lift on the opposing rotors in order to get the helicopter to tilt and then start to drift one direction or the other. This was done with small control surfaces on the tips of each of the rotors. But through the first two weeks of testing we did and early in the winter, we realized that was an untenable system, that there was nothing to do to make it workThe solution we ended up adopting was very simple. Basically, instead of varying the opposing rotor's lift, the pilot leans the bike, and by leaning the bike, it pulls on lines attached to the bottoms of the rotor posts, and that tilts the thrusts of the rotors, which gives you an instantaneous and very large sideways force. It's very intuitive and simple, and we save like, six to eight pounds off the helicopter.That's interesting. Probably more organic to control, too.
Cameron: Oh yeah, it's so cool, you just lean where you want to go, and you can feel it responding instantly. It's amazing. It's not a solution we had thought of from the get go. It wasn't until we started flying that we saw how flexible this thing was.So, this is obviously the most advanced human-powered helicopter ever made, but when you look at it, the thing is massive. It’s 150 feet wide. What is it going to take to get a personal, human-powered helicopter? Is that possible?
Todd: I will be the first to say that nothing is impossible. I can't envision how we would make it small enough at this point.
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Cameron: It's much more efficient to push down lightly on a large amount of air than it is to push really hard on a small amount of air. So the power required varies directly with how big the rotor disk is. If you weigh 160 pounds, you have to lift that, which requires a massive disk area.So people aren't going to be taking pedalcopters to work anytime soon?
Todd: No, not quite. I wish I could answer that better.
Todd: A speed bike is a recumbent bicycle that is covered in a composite aerodynamic shell that is capable of highway speeds. Some of our bikes have been up to 120 km/h, and the next bike is designed for up to 140km/h. Every year, we go to the world human-powered speed challenge out in Battle Mountain, Nevada.Battle Mountain? Are you fucking kidding me? That’s a sweet name.
Todd: It's unfortunately a bit of a decrepit mining town. It's economically depressed, as is most of the US.Cameron: Battle Mountain is where everyone goes. It's this five mile stretch of road where dreams are made. There are teams from France, Russia, the Netherlands, Canada, the US, and Australia—who go and bring the fastest technology in the world. The competition is really heating up. The current record has stood for a few years and hopefully this year, we or another team break it. The speed bikes are interesting because not only are they 140 km/h which is faster than driving a car, it's also that out of all the technologies we work on, these have the most potential for practical application. You could commute with them in the future, it could be part of the next generation of personal transport. That would be interesting to see.
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Cameron: Well, part of the exciting thing we're doing with the speed bikes is focusing on student learning. The whole team out there are all University of Toronto and Ryerson engineering students, and imbuing in the next generation of engineers the concept of lightweight design for efficient engineering is one of the drivers. It's not the vehicles themselves. Commercializing them isn't our goal. We want young people out there to see nothing is impossible and that undertaking a great challenge for the thrill of it can lead to some incredible things.It's also important to understand where all our support came from. There's been a partnership with the University of Toronto, corporate sponsorships, a few research grants, as well as a Kickstarter fundraising campaign—this kind of grassroots innovation does need the public’s support, their sympathy, and their help. This wasn't in a vacuum, it took the support of the whole community.And it worked! Good news all-round.Follow Patrick on Twitter: @patrickmcguireAlso:Canadian Scientists Built a Virtual Map of the Human Brain