Flipping Heck It’s A SmartInversion

Introduction

It’s an unusual flying object – this SmartInversion – that propels itself by flipping inside out. Created by engineers at Festo in Esslingen, Germany. It was originally reported in a New Scientist blog in April 2012 which is no longer online. I decided to investigate it further and found it in the Festo archives.

What I’ve Found

At the time it didn’t appear to have a name  so I called it a Flipping Heck as in, “Flipping heck what is it?” Festo did give it a name apparently. It’s called a SmartInversion. I understand it’s filled with helium to keep it afloat so maybe it’s a Flipping Balloon.

Here is a video of the SmartInversion:

Some parts of the video are speeded up. In reality it only moves slowly. Here is a link to Festo’s article.