Tag: Helicopter

While I really don’t think we need any more Angry Birds merchandise, I have to say this is one of the better product tie-ins I’ve seen so far. What we’ve got here is the Angry Birds Helicopter, which actually lets you practice flying your bird with a remote control.

Griffin has been selling some interesting little remote control helicopters for a while. The little helicopters are controlled by iOS devices such as an iPhone or an iPad. I’ve used them before and I can say that they can be difficult to control.

If you’re a fan of flying remote control toys, I bet you remember the original AR.Drone. Parrot has a new version of the AR.Drone that will launch soon called the AR.Drone 2.0. It looks very similar to the original with a few notable exceptions such as the addition of a 720p video camera, improved flying precision and increased altitude limits.

There’s just something inherently cool about flying quadrotors. But I have to say this is the first time I’ve seen this many of the crafts flying in unison. Using a veritable army of flying nano-quadrotors from KMel Robotics, Alex Kushleyev, Daniel Mellinger and Vijay Kumar of the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Lab sent a team of tightly-coordinated to the skies in their lab.

Clearly, the dude that designed this flying rotorcraft has been watching some Avatar. This helicopter style device has the duel rotors on top that are surrounded by fan-like rings that the movie’s flying machines sported. It also reminds me somewhat of a refined version of that M.A.S.K.

I have spent my share of time flying around the Swann original quad copters, and they are a ton of fun. The little helicopters are made for flying indoors and are small enough that you can have fun even in a small apartment.

Robots are taking our jobs, sure, but look at that image. They are also taking our humans. This guy went willingly, but one day they will join together just like these little helicopters and carry us away while our limbs flail helplessly.

There’s only a couple of days before Halloween, so if you haven’t already picked out your costume, you might want to get it together now. If you happen to be a fan of Inspector Gadget, here’s a fun idea to bring that costume to life.

In the world of high-end cameras for shooting movies and video, the RED brand is at the top. These cameras are so awesome that they are what major directors are now using to film Hollywood blockbusters.

The aptly named Flybox [opens PDF] is just that, a thin flying box shaped six-blade helicopter. It comes from Skybotix, an offshoot of the Autonomous Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Last month, the Griffin Helo TC helicopter that is controlled by the iPhone surfaced, but the product wasn’t official yet. Today the official press release has been sent out and we have all the details on the little toy that we want to know.

When you think about RC helicopters, the word lethal isn’t really something that pops into mind, but it might when you see this one. The Shadowhawk helicopter is remote-controlled and can fire stun batons, shotgun shells and grenades at your enemies.

A little while back we talked a bit about the very cool looking Kyosho iOS controlled helicopter from Japan that had surfaced. The thing reminds me a lot of the Parrot AR.Drone in a smaller and cheaper form.

Here’s something fun for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users to look forward to this holiday season. The guys from Japan’s Kyosho – one of the leading makers of radio-controlled model vehicles – are working on an iOS-compatible helicopter.

Helicopters are awesome, but they have some drawbacks. The fantastic thing about the helicopter is that it can land and take off vertically needing no more space to do so than it takes to clear the rotors.

Got a couple of fancy quadrocopters floating around? Why not teach them some cheap tricks – like how to juggle balls. The guys from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich are up to their flying quadrocopter shenanigans again.