Anyone else following the DARPA Lift Challenge?
$6.5M in prize money to build a drone that can:
- Stay under 55 lbs
- Take off with a 110 lb minimum payload (4x its weight)
- Fly 4 nautical miles loaded (12 laps)
- Drop the payload
- Fly 1 more nautical mile empty (3 laps)
- Finish inside a 30-min window
Top 3 teams split the full prize as long as they clear the 4:1 ratio.
Most heavy-lift drones can barely lift their own weight. DARPA wants 4x. That's never been done.
Steel is approximately 99% iron.
The remaining 0.02–2% is carbon, and that tiny fraction is what separates a material that bends from one that can hold up a skyscraper.
More carbon: harder and stronger, but more brittle.
Less carbon: softer and more ductile, but weaker.
The entire history of metallurgy is the story of humans learning to control that 1%.
This technique exists in Europe as well! The high version is called from the roof in Germany. In Italy, it was called the stance of the queen.
When the sword's held low, it's called near ward in German and guard of the long tail in Italian.