Software engineer Joshua Bird builds a drone that flies with one motor
The gist
Software engineer Joshua Bird built a 3D-printed drone that hovers and steers with a single motor.
The design could make drones smaller and cheaper, but its control software is complex.
How it unfolded
- Oct 17, 2026Bird's YouTube video "I Built a Drone With Only One Motor" is posted, with open source code and CAD files listed on GitHub.
- Oct 19, 2026Tom's Hardware, Hackaday, Mezha and Yahoo Tech publish articles on the build, describing a 45-degree hinged rotor and firmware reacting in under 0.2 milliseconds.
- Oct 19, 2026The build is discussed on Hacker News and Reddit's r/robotics, where the pulsing of motor torque 300 times a second, timed to rotor angle, is described.