Micro Quad

Sometimes, the best option is still to just build it yourself. A few months ago, we introduced you to filmmaker Robert McIntosh. He told us how he hacked up a GoPro to cut the fat and minimise its space & weight. Now, he’s had a little while to refine his design, and taken things even smaller. And it produces fantastic results.

It’s only 5″ wide, and 3″ tall with 2″ propellers. The GoPro Hero 4 looks like it’s been stripped back even more and completely reconfigured in form to fit. And the whole thing can fly through some extremely tiny holes. Robert’s new film Muscle-Up takes us on a flight through California’s Muscle Beach, with a few sound bytes to highlight the area’s real and cinematic history.

Here’s the thing with micro quads, they’re small. Real small. The clue’s in the name, really. And when they’re carrying a load, every single gram of weight saved counts. This was the issue faced by filmmaker Robert McIntosh when he wanted to attach an already rather small GoPro Hero 4 to his micro quad. Why? To fly it through very tight spaces, of course.

When I first came across Robert’s film Fresh Squeeze, I’ll admit I was a little confused. The quality is that which we’ve come to know and love from GoPro cameras. But drones capable of lifting a GoPro are generally too large to fit through such small holes. So, I got in touch with Robert to find out a little more about how the film was made.