Remote-controlled helicopters can be fun to fly, but they’re not exactly easy to see in the dark. But these little R/C choppers not only light up when flying, their blades can display messages while airborne.
The helicopter’s spinning blades have LEDs on them, which can be programmed to display dot-matrix text or icons which emerge while the blades spin, thanks to a persistence of vision illusion.
Simply enter the text you want to display using the companion app (which appears to be Windows only), choose the animation pattern, and download the data to your helicopter. The text is designed to be legible when viewed from the ground looking up at the helicopter.
The helicopter itself has 8-inch gyro-stabilized blades, and can be charged via USB. The LED R/C Helicopter is available from Brando for $39.90(USD).
It would be cool to see this same technology applied to multi-blade drones too.
