Amazing technology in a cheap toy helicopter

[BrightCandle]

I got a little RC helicopter for christmas and today it struck me the amazing technology breakthroughs that went into making it happen since the dawn of flight. This device would not have been possible 140+ years ago for a variety of reasons:

- Plastics - its made extensively of them and they didn't exist

- Aluminium - What metal present is lighter and stronger than anything they had

- Precision engineering - The precession engineering in the screws alone would likely have been nearly impossible

- Gyroscope - More processing power than the world had available and a remarkable simple and effective sensor to make flight stable

- Fluid dynamics - The design of the blades have been tuned over thousands of different designs of aircraft and helicopters and now in plastic realise remarkable lift

- Batteries - Lithium ion, huge power density and lighter than anything available at the time

- Lighting - LEDs just cheaply thrown in for cool effects, not available in the time

- Controller radio - Radio waves existed but this level of frequency control and noise reduction didn't. A spectrum widely shared is used without issue

- Analogue controls - An incredibly simple controller with plastic analog sticks with precision that could not have existed.

- Controller batteries - Rechargeable, durable and light. Again nothing like them in the day.

What remarkable progress it took for flight to go from something a few people were very dangerously trying to achieve to being a cheap toy worth $25.

 

[Jodell88]

Helicopters didn't exist 140 years ago either.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

stuff is better now than 140 years ago?

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Don't be such downers. I think it's cool to stop every once in a while and appreciate how good we have things.

 

[skyking]

Wife got me a propel RC with a tail rotor and IR remote from costco for about 40.
I can fly it faster and better than any of the other cheap helicopters I have broken. It came with spares and I used one of the links between the rotors and balance weights the other day. It flew a bunch of flights with only one link anyway.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Wife got me a propel RC with a tail rotor and IR remote from costco for about 40.
I can fly it faster and better than any of the other cheap helicopters I have broken. It came with spares and I used one of the links between the rotors and balance weights the other day. It flew a bunch of flights with only one link anyway.

Pretty sure I have the same model. The vaulted ceilings in my place make flight a ton of fun. The ceiling fan...not so much.

 

[moonbogg]

I was into RC Heli flying for a while as well, and I did stop and think about this. There infront of me was an amazing "toy" that would have stunned people from only 50 years ago. Something that can fly 60mph, shoot straight up hundreds of feet until you can't even see it, hover perfectly still and land and take off from anywhere. It could be used for surveillance during both war and peace time, transport small items to hard to reach places, used to drop grenades behind enemy cover in close quarters fighting etc etc. And here it is being used to simply entertain some average citizen on his day off.

 

[supastar1568]

Hey OP,

You stole my thoughts. I got one for my birthday back in November and I'm amazed at the logistics as to how they can make money at the $25 selling point. Materials, shipping, third party, etc etc. Pretty remarkable.

 

[waggy]

while i agree toys today are amazing.

really comparing it to toys 140 years ago? WTF?

 

[IronWing]

stuff is better now than 140 years ago?

Where'd they get leather on a space ship?

 

[waggy]

Where'd they get leather on a space ship?

and the cigar.

 

[TwiceOver]

"2013: Now with cooler shit!"

 

[KidNiki1]

while i agree toys today are amazing.

really comparing it to toys 140 years ago? WTF?

i dont think he is comparing then to now. i think he is pointing out the amazing advances that have been made over the years.

note how he said progress in the closing line?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Don't be such downers. I think it's cool to stop every once in a while and appreciate how good we have things.

And 140 years ago people thought they were at the pinnacle of technology because they were. And 140 years from now people will look back at 2013 and laugh at how primitive we were that we were amused by plastic toy helicopters.

 

[CPA]

Yep, all of those great technologies...used for a toy.

 

[Kaido]

And it gets even better...check out the new Air Hogs "Heli Replay" R/C chopper:

http://www.airhogs.com/en/products/heli-replay

You can record your flight path, then hit play and it will fly on it's own using what you recorded! You can also switch control over to your smartphone and use the accelerometer to fly the heli around. Pretty wild stuff for under $40!

The new Parrot AR.Drone is out now as well...a $300 personal UAV with a 720p HD video camera for recording your phones and smartphone control. And it live-streams to your phone or tablet so you can "pilot" the drone from the screen:

http://ardrone2.parrot.com/

I picked up a Udirc U816 (check eBay or Brando) for $50 last year - a micro quad-copter (basically a mini UAV) and it flies better than any of my mini-choppers, although it's definitely an outdoor toy and can shoot up to 50 feet in seconds, despite fitting in the palm of your hand. I think the Ladybird is the same model:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009Y8W53E/

Oh, and it can do flips, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xPtQjtO2VYs#t=329s

 

[NutBucket]

stuff is better now than 140 years ago?

Where'd they get leather on a space ship?

Why is Dirk Benedict dressed as Han Solo?

 

[Kaido]

Yep, all of those great technologies...used for a toy.

Yeah, it's a good thing we're only using them for toys, and that people like DARPA aren't building R/C hummingbirds with video cameras in them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQVyZtHnWwE

Or R/C cockroaches with microphones:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-The-remote-control-cockroach-spy-future.html

:awe:

 

[Fritzo]

I got a little RC helicopter for christmas and today it struck me the amazing technology breakthroughs that went into making it happen since the dawn of flight. This device would not have been possible 140+ years ago for a variety of reasons:

- Plastics - its made extensively of them and they didn't exist

- Aluminium - What metal present is lighter and stronger than anything they had

- Precision engineering - The precession engineering in the screws alone would likely have been nearly impossible

- Gyroscope - More processing power than the world had available and a remarkable simple and effective sensor to make flight stable

- Fluid dynamics - The design of the blades have been tuned over thousands of different designs of aircraft and helicopters and now in plastic realise remarkable lift

- Batteries - Lithium ion, huge power density and lighter than anything available at the time

- Lighting - LEDs just cheaply thrown in for cool effects, not available in the time

- Controller radio - Radio waves existed but this level of frequency control and noise reduction didn't. A spectrum widely shared is used without issue

- Analogue controls - An incredibly simple controller with plastic analog sticks with precision that could not have existed.

- Controller batteries - Rechargeable, durable and light. Again nothing like them in the day.

What remarkable progress it took for flight to go from something a few people were very dangerously trying to achieve to being a cheap toy worth $25.

That toy wouldn't have been possible 15 years ago truthfully. We came a long way in battery tech. That alone makes these copters possible.

 

[SKORPI0]

Here's what they were playing with 140 years ago, 1872 Vulcan Saddleback Locomotive. :hmm:

 

[SAWYER]

I have a Blade MCX and it is amazing how easy that thing is to fly

 

[Kaido]

That toy wouldn't have been possible 15 years ago truthfully. We came a long way in battery tech. That alone makes these copters possible.

I followed the guy who pioneered this stuff, I think they had an article on him in the model aviation magazine - he had a small website where he updated his progress...it was just like millions of little gear and head variations and a big struggle with tiny servos, motors, and batteries because the technology just wasn't there. Once he nailed it, the technology went commercial pretty quickly, and I think they said that all of the cell phones with the little tiny vibration buzzer motors helped out quite a bit. Wish I could find his website again...

 

[mizzou]

back in the early 90's, the tech that's in these $25 controllable helicopters did not exist to make them that size and anywhere even close to that price. Helicopters were extremely expensive hobbies

 

[PokerGuy]

What's fascinating is that technology seems to be advancing at an ever accelerating pace, but the humans using the technology seem to be getting dumber at the same time.

 

[jagec]

while i agree toys today are amazing.

really comparing it to toys 140 years ago? WTF?

He's comparing toys today to the top-end technology of 140 years ago. As in, if you gave the brightest minds of the century an unlimited budget and told them to build the smallest and highest-performance flying machine that they could achieve.