Awesome Tom Stanton

An RC airplane is typically launched using its motor or by tossing it into the air by hand and then turning on its engine. Tom Stanton thought it would be cool to build a model airplane launcher that works like a railgun, building up speed through the opposing forces of electromagnets. Tom previously built a less powerful version for paper airplanes.

Aerospace engineer Tom Stanton has built a few R/C airplanes powered by compressed air. He’s continued to work on refining the design by reducing weight and increasing thrust. Tom’s latest pneumatic aircraft is the best yet, offering the best flight time of the bunch thanks to improved aerodynamics, a larger air chamber, and an efficient new engine,

Engineer Tom Stanton is fascinated by the way in which flywheels can store up energy as they’re spun up to speed. In this clip, he combines a flywheel mechanism with a sturdy aluminum trebuchet, creating a durable machine that can toss a tennis ball at fast as 180 mph.

A normal bike uses a set of gears to influence the amount of torque sent to its rear wheel. Tom Stanton wanted to see if it was possible to create a bike transmission that uses magnets to turn its wheel and create resistance. Put your thinking caps on for this brainy video that incorporates physics, math, and engineering.

Electromagnets can be very powerful. They’ve even been used to get roller coasters and trains rolling and to launch fighter jets. Tom Stanton made a miniature system of homebrew linear synchronous motors which use electromagnetism to propel a small sled and launch various items including a hot dog and a paper airplane.

The motors used in electric-powered bicycles are usually pretty heavy. Engineer Tom Stanton wanted to see if it would be possible to rig up a tiny but strong 1kW motor from a drone to propel a bike. The trick was creating a series of gears and belts to reduce the motor’s high rotational speed while increasing its torque.

Supercapacitors have one big advantage over batteries – they charge much faster. But they also discharge energy more quickly, limiting operating range. This makes them suboptimal for EVs. Engineer Tom Stanton built a supercapacitor pack and drive unit for an E-bike to see just how it stacks up to battery power.

Aerospace engineer Tom Stanton has a thing for flywheels. Here, he first shows us how to build a flywheel that spins smoothly thanks to magnetic levitation, then how that spinning action can be used to generate a small amount of electricity and capture it via copper induction coils.

When we were kids, we had one of those wind-up toys that launched a flying propellor into the air. Aerospace engineer Tom Stanton wanted to see what he could do if he ramped up the energy by spinning up a larger (and more dangerous) version of the propellor flywheel using a motor.