Stanford’s Robot Makers: David Lentink

David Lentink is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University. His lab is known for its work on aerial vehicles - drones and winged robots - that are inspired by birds, bats and flying insects. This Q&A is one of five featuring Stanford faculty who work on robots as part of the project Stanford's Robotics Legacy. Lentink as a high-schooler, winding the rubber band of his model airplane with another flying in the background, circa 1994. (Image credit: Courtesy David Lentink) I designed and built model airplanes at high school and set flight duration records in competition. The rubber-powered airplanes I designed then were passively stable - they had to fly on their own without any computer onboard - so the design had to be just right. They could fly up to 18 minutes on a single rubber band. (I did not compete in world championships, but plan to pick it up again when I am 70 years old, because that is the ideal age to become world champion in it!) I also started building flapping model airplanes powered by rubber bands. From this hobby, I learned robots could do so much more if you build in the dynamics that they need to perform well passively. Then you can focus the limited onboard control on what matters most to complete a mission. This lesson has proven a real advantage because I don't get bogged down by dogmas requiring impossible computational power. It has also helped me question the conventional wisdom that unstable aerial robots that are constantly controlled by an autopilot are most maneuverable. More important, the instability of robots may be a key factor that is limiting them from flying well in turbulence, such as gusts of wind in urban environments. What was your first robotics project?