Some amazing engineer built a drone that can lift its own weight using only the electric power that it gets from an on-board solar panel and nothing else (no battery).
Video: I Built a Solar Powered Drone and it WORKS by Luke Maximo Bell
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
231 points (99.6% liked)
pics
27216 readers
187 users here now
Rules:
1.. Please mark original photos with [OC] in the title if you're the photographer
2..Pictures containing a politician from any country or planet are prohibited, this is a community voted on rule.
3.. Image must be a photograph, no AI or digital art.
4.. No NSFW/Cosplay/Spam/Trolling images.
5.. Be civil. No racism or bigotry.
Photo of the Week Rule(s):
1.. On Fridays, the most upvoted original, marked [OC], photo posted between Friday and Thursday will be the next week's banner and featured photo.
2.. The weekly photos will be saved for an end of the year run off.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://mastodon.world/about
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah the problem is more with the weight of the components and how little energy is in that small patch of sunlight. To provide enough thrust to hold it up is impressive, not just that a solar panel is providing power.
the thing is that the amount of power on that little patch of area is actually a lot; we just continue to underestimate it because it doesn't feel like much. i mean, we stand under direct sunlight all day long and never feel like a train hits us. however, the amount of energy in the sunlight is quite a lot, we're just very good at ignoring it.