Jarno Smeets Flies Like a Bird

humanbirdwings.net—Jarno Smeets, a mechanical engineer from the Netherlands, wants to fly.

“When I was younger, my granddad was actually working on some sketches for a flying bicycle. A helicopter, human powered by a bike mechanism. As a child I was always very intrigued by these drawings, back then I really believed that my granddad would once be able to fly on this bike. Only later I realized that this would be a very difficult thing to accomplish. The images of his flying bike have always been floating around in the back of my mind. So, for that great dream my grandpa gave me, he is still my biggest inspiration for starting this ‘Human Birdwings’ project.”

Jarno’s Grandad’s sketch

“When I was studying in England, my knowledge about mechanical and electronical engineering started to expand. I soon discovered that flapping wings without external powersupport would be impossible. During the more boring lectures I started sketching and writing down ideas about how wings could be powerassisted by actuators during their flapping movement. Back then there were no easy accessible components to, for example, collect arm movement data. The last few years a lot of exciting consumer devices, like Wii controllers and Smartphones, have been developped which changed my original ideas drastically.”

Making the wings in the workshop.

Jarno tests the flapping of the wings with the electronic mechanism with the Wii controllers. It works! He can fully control the wings with his arms.

An HTC phone and a Wii remote are programmed to work together in order to let them flap the wings at the precise movement.

Jarno talks with Bert Otten professor in Neuromechanics at the Univeristy of Groningen about the ability to fly like birds.