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Drone Made of Lego Takes Flight

Posted by samzenpus on from the toys-from-toys dept.

TVmisGuided writes "People have made UAVs out of wood, aluminum, even 3D-printed plastic. But now comes the tale of C#/C++ developer Ed Scott who, after damaging his Gaui 330x, got the idea of designing and building a Lego quadcopter. And it worked! 'Most people go to their favorite hobby store to get parts for their UAV, I go to my kid's playroom.'"

7 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Conditioned Much? by Johann+Lau · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Last millenium weq had RC planes and shit. Why call them drones now? Is that to give legitimacy to extrajudicial killings, or is it to derive coolness from them? It's one thing or the other, that's for fucking sure, so tell me. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is such a needy and funny thing to call it... you mean like a paper airplane? Or a helium balloon? WTF people. Oh, and this is bad enough without dragging your kid into it, btw. Just a thought. Now do your butthurt thingy where you mod me down as flamebait or troll, you know you wanna ^^

    1. Re:Conditioned Much? by gencodeinc · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hi everyone, I am the dad in the video, I want to clear a couple things. !) It’s just an RC plane (Jonathan) Yes, in the beginning it 100% WAS but its not now, well more of a UAV than simple RC because of the FPV. Then about mid way we added the Arducoptor controller. Uploaded waypoints and it flew 100% on its own using a Mediatech GPS through 3 waypoints and back home so yes it’s a true drone now. It also can land on its own but right now it’s such a hard landing it broke the legs that’s why you see the blue tape in the back of one of the legs. It does take off on its own, but you must throw the throttle up a little to start it for safety. Once the stick is thrown even a little it takes up on its own, I asked my son to go a little over half way in case that something went wrong and I had to take manual control. A little over half way would guarantee that it’s still ascending and not crashing to earth. It is fully autonomous. 2) Its not 100% LEGOs. Well no, it not at all, and if you read the description on the YouTube you see I stated 100% LEGO Frame, that’s all. Mainly wanted to build a cheap strong frame with my kids. And I did and it was fun. 3) I used a CAD....um no, its LDD, LEGO Digital Designer, I guess its a kiddie CAD made by LEGO but its not AutoCad and actually the kids use it more than me. My son’s involvement was 100% build and about 100% helping with design of frame. Also oldest helped configure waypoints and flight plan. This is the autopilot system I used http://store.diydrones.com/APM_2_5_Assembled_p/br-apmpwrkt.htm [diydrones.com] You can get LDD here http://ldd.lego.com/ [lego.com] Hope this helps the confusion.

  2. He must annoy his kids by ohnocitizen · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Daaaaaaad, stop taking my legos!!!"
    "Sorry champ, Daddy has dreams."

  3. it's not to boil enthousiasm down, but... by Herve5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... as far as I can see, the only thing Lego in this quadcopter is the plastic structure. Motors are not, batteries are not, control electronics are not, RF and presumably remote control are not, servomotors are not.

    So are we discussing a "drone using some lego bricks for the structure"?

    H.
    now mod me down, but remember I'm 50: at home I have older bricks than you (in addition to the vast amount aggregated by three sons)

    --
    Herve S.
    1. Re:it's not to boil enthousiasm down, but... by Kyusaku+Natsume · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think this is a neat hack in the best sense of "hack", since they already had the bricks and the quadcopter parts. Plus, since it was designed by the kids, I will cut them some slack. Still, I would like to see the next, stronger, lighter and not glued version using Lego Technic beams. There is too much room for improvement :).

      --
      Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
    2. Re:it's not to boil enthousiasm down, but... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      now mod me down, but remember I'm 50: at home I have older bricks than you (in addition to the vast amount aggregated by three sons)

      Holy shit, I'm only 35 and I can use this insult all day, every day. Thanks.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Re:That's... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is his doing something like this with his grandkids pretty lame? Seriously - he wasn't doing it for your approval and for you to be insulting to him (its not like he asked to be on slashdot) is a bit rude. What emotion inside you drove you to make that comment?

    I applaud his work with his grandkids..