A 41-year-old man flying a Gaui X7 model helicopter in Lucerne, Switzerland suffered head and arm injuries and died after he was presumably struck by the helicopter. The model weighs 5 pounds, is about 4 feet 5 inches long, and has a rotor diameter of about 5 feet 4 inches.
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The folks at FinalCutKing, who brought us that wonderful remote control car chase
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Last year Kenji Ishida and his company Brave Robotics released 10 units of his awesome remote controlled car that can transform into a mecha. Unsurprisingly, all 10 units were bought, and there’s no word on when the company will release more. But you might not have to wait for Brave Robotics, because toy maker Takara Tomy is also working on a similar toy.
Before you accuse Takara Tomy of stealing Kenji Ishida’s work, lawyer down. Frankie of Hobby Media spotted Takara Tomy’s prototype at the 2013 Tokyo Toy Show, and apparently he also found out that Takara Tomy is collaborating with Brave Robotics. So we’re all good.
Frankie also said that he saw the toy transform, but he was asked not to film it as it was still a work in progress. Just to refresh your memory, here’s what Brave Robotics’ toy looks like in action:
I think I’ll save up for Ishida’s life-size transforming car.
[via Hobby Media]
Back in February, we mentioned some cool build-your-own iPhone remote control Brick Cars from Utico that had landed in Japan. These cars let you drive around using your iPhone or other Apple gadget as a controller and you get to build the car as well. When they first surfaced they were only available in Japan and were priced at about $43 each.
If you thought those little LEGO-style remote control cars were really cool, you’ll be glad to hear that you can now buy them in the United States via iHelicopters.net. The downside is that the price has increased with the little kits now selling for $59.95 (USD).
There is a Mini Brick car kit and a Mini Brick Van kits to choose from. Both allow you to customize the design of the vehicle to suit your style. While they’re too small to use with LEGO bricks, they’re actually compatible with Nanoblocks building blocks.
The kits use wireless connectivity with a control range of 20 to 30 m. Charge time for the transmitter is 60 minutes for 120 minutes of play and charge time for the car itself is 20 minutes for 10 minutes of play. The control app is available free on the iTunes app store right now.
If you want to skip the build up to the aerial crash, fast forward to about the 1:15 mark on the video to see an 80-inch RC plane with 50cc gas engine hit a RC helicopter and then immediately nosedive to its destruction. The plane clips one of its wings when it hits the chopper and immediately spirals down and slams into the ground. Gnarly. More »
It’s not the first miniature car chase to leave us desperately missing our RC toys of yesteryear. But this one perfectly captures the feeling of your stereotypical Hollywood blockbuster car chase—complete with tiny sidewalk cafes for the cars to smash through. More »
Growing up I built more than my fair share of paper airplanes. I’m sure a lot of you guys built plenty of them yourselves, and we still build quite a few paper flying machines around my house. I’ll let you in on a little secret – being able to fly paper airplanes off of the landing is the main reason why I purchased a two-story home.
But if your paper airplanes don’t stay in the air long enough for you, you’ll want to get one with a propeller to help things along. TailorToys has announced their updated PowerUp 3.0 electric paper airplane conversion kit that allows your paper planes to actually fly under their own power.
These kits have been around for a while, but version 3.0 now allows you to control your airplane using a smartphone. This version of the paper airplane kit works with any smartphone supporting Bluetooth 4.0. While there’s no video footage yet of the PowerUp 3.0 in action, here’s a clip of the previous generation flying high in the sky:
The kit is scheduled to ship in August 2013. The company also unveiled a similar PowerUp Boat kit that converts your paper boats into electric powerboats. The Boat Kit will be available in July 2013. Pricing for both kits is undisclosed at this time.
Many scientists have theorized that the reason the Hindenburg went down in flames was because of the combination of flammable hydrogen gas and paints on the surface of the blimp’s skin. Well you won’t have to worry about either of those with this little R/C toy that’s designed to look like an airship.
Created by China’s AMAX Toys, the Airship is a remote-controlled flyer that uses a pair of horizontal propellers to lift it into the air. Of course, the only reason this design works is that the Airship itself has no skin. Instead, you see the skeleton of the dirigible – and that’s pretty cool.
The Airship measures about 11-inches-long, and can fly for about 5 to 6 minutes on a 60 minute charge. I comes with a 3-channel infrared remote – which limits running distance to about 30 feet, and has gyroscopes to help keep it balanced while flying.
The Airship is available in wholesale quantities from AMAX Toys, but they’re not selling them retail at this point.
If you’ve been following Technabob for a while, you might remember the Blockcar – a LEGO-style remote-controlled car from Japan. Well here we are a couple of years older and wiser, another brick-building car has surfaced – this time with iOS R/C capabilities.
These UTICO vehicle kits come with all of the bricks you need to assemble a pre-designed car or minibus. While they’re not official LEGO blocks, these snap-together R/C toys still look like they could be fun to play with.
Just because they come in specific kits for each vehicle doesn’t mean you couldn’t build something else with them – like a hot dog or a chicken on wheels or something.
Each kit comes with a USB-rechargeable motorized base platform, along with an infrared dongle you can plug into iPhones or iPads with the 30-pin docking connector. It looks like later-model iDevices won’t be able to control these at this point.
The R/C Brick Car is available from Japan’s JTT for ¥3,980 (~$43 USD).
These awesome little R/C tanks can be controlled with your iOS mobile devices. That means that you can have tank wars with all of your gadget-obsessed friends and family. They are modeled on real German army tanks used during Second World War, but these ones are palm-sized.
They go by the name RC Tank Combat Raj USB (Or the less exciting “model number RCCOMBAT34.”) They feature infrared sensors that you use to point your cannon at other tanks. Once you hit the enemy tank’s sensor at top of the turret four times, you win. They look like they have nice maneuverability and speed. Much better than that of a real tank.
The caterpillar rubber grips on the treads make it adhere to most surfaces and able to scale elevations of up to 30 degrees. These tanks will go for about 5 minutes before they need a charge. Then you just charge via a USB connection.
These awesome little military toys are compatible with all iOS models including iPhone 5, iPhone 4/4S, iPod touch, all iPads and the iPad mini. They retail for ¥2,780 (~$30 USD) each, or ¥4,980 (~$53 USD) for a pair over at Japan’s JTT Online, and you can use a service like White Rabbit Express to import them for a small fee.
[via Damngeeky]
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