Unless you have been living under a rock you have probably seen or heard about the new PicoZ palm sized helicopter. This gnat of an RC toy is becoming quite viral. Hobbytron.com has a great sale on the PicoZ. 1 for $39.00 or 3 for $109.00 Read more (plus video)
We bought a few to play with at the office and immediatly started chattering about hack ideas. But then we stumbled across the full page of mini RC flyers that are on the market. We had no idea there were so many! The X-UFO was ordered about 9 seconds after discovering it. All these mini flyers have hack-me written all over them. Add a wireless security camera and you have an instant remote presence robot.
I wish I’d known about those little helicopters earlier. They would have made good christmas presents for the kids.
They’re not only for kids. Matt got me one for Christmas, and let me tell ya, this chopper is a blast to fly! I love tormenting my cat with this thing:)
We are DYING to get the X-UFO in. I’m looking for mini wireless cameras to put on it already
My X-UFO just arrived but from what little I’ve done with it, I’m pretty sure it’s got enough lift to handle more electronics (chips, sensors, etc). The bat’s 12v so some voltage regulation needed. It’s nice and stable, thanks to its mechanical gyro. There are some posts attached to the electronics, no indication as to signals. Seems to me the mechanical gyro and radio electronics are excessively heavy, once I finish playing with it I’ll have to see what goes where and maybe replace that gyro with something lighter and remove the radio circuit, but this is gonna be my flying robot.
Awesome, you should take pics and vids as you build and post the project in the forums. We would love to see how it comes out!