Horsefly was my project to reverse engineer some of the software in the AR.drone, a remote-controlled quad-rotor helicopter that can be piloted with a WiFi-capable iDevice app (I used my iPad). I very much admire the drone's software and hardware design and I think it would make a great teaching tool for a course in embedded product development. I didn't write any software specifically for the drone, although I did hack in to it and modify it, and ultimately controlled it via a commercially-available Android app running on Contraption on a BeagleBoard.
Here are some articles that my alter-ego, Chip Overclock, has written about Horsefly:
- Deconstructing the AR.drone: Part 1
- Deconstructing the AR.drone: Part 2
- Deconstructing the AR.drone: Part 3
- Contraption and Horsefly: Beagle Board, Android, AR.drone
- Deconstructing the AR.drone: Part 4
- Deconstructing the AR.drone: Part 5
- Deconstructing the AR.drone: Part 6