Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: Otherlab

When most people hear the word drone they either think of uncrewed military aircraft or those multi-rotor mini-copters that could one daydeliver packages to your doorstep. But what if the package is the plane? Thats the idea behind the Aerial Platform Supporting Autonomous Resupply Actions drone, a cardboard glider that carries about two pounds of cargo.

It looks like a pizza box thats been shaped into a wing, says Star Simpson, an engineer at San Francisco robotics company Otherlab. Herteam designed and built Apsara with funding from Darpa, which challenged them to developa single-use delivery vehiclefor emergency scenarios. But, Darpa being Darpa, there was a twist: The drones had to not only carry a small payload and land where you told them toonce they were on the ground, they had to disappear.

Cardboard was an obvious choice. Its cheap, lightweight, and can decompose in a matter of months. Plus, the material has a proven track record among drone hobbyists. The Apsara advances cardboard-drone design with something Simpson calls origami thinking; her teams three-foot-wide drone is made of scored and laser-cut cardboard sheets that take about an hour to fold and tape together. Simpson calls it the worlds most functional paper airplane.

Thats important. The Apsara is designed to be deployed by the hundreds or thousands, to deliver supplies during a humanitarian crisis, or in a battles aftermath. For security and ecological reasons alike, the last thing anyone wants is a landscape covered in drone bits.

Now an Otherlab spin-off company called Everfly is hoping to refine the prototype for use by humanitarian groups like the Red Cross or MSF.Simpson thinks Everfly can scale the design tocarry a 22-pound payload (thats about 120 Clif bars). While it may not be as sexy as a whirring drone carrying your UPS package, we bet anyone in dire straits would be more than happy to see a mushroom wing full of energy bars gently floating in for a landing.

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The Brilliant Drone That'll Deliver MedicineThen Rot Away | WIRED - WIRED