Flybrix : LEGO + Drone

JooTog

Somebody from work sent me this article about a drone making kit with LEGO:
http://ktla.com/2016/09/22/san-francisco-startup-offers-drone-making-kit-with-legos/
(it has an embedded video from CNN that seems to no longer exist)

Here's their official website: http://flybrix.com/

I am not into the drone scene, but it looks cool.

Also found an unboxing video from JANGBRiCKS on YouTube for the pre-release kit: http://youtu.be/sRChNYiZBCA

BooTheMightyHamster

I am sorely tempted, although the test flight videos I've seen suggest no more than about 10 seconds of stable flight.
I know that they're saying 'It's Lego - breaking it and rebuilding it is half the fun!', but I'm not sure how much abuse the props / motors / board will take.

JooTog

Also, most, if not all of their demo videos use 8 motors, which means 2 kits.

My first reaction was "Wow! Cool! Let's buy one!", then I remembered I'm not into drones and suck at flying those things. Besides, how many kits are needed to lift off #75105 or #70738 ? :-D

CCC

Last summer, we made a small plane that could "fly" by attaching it to a kite to get it in the air. Then when you were at altitude it was released using a quick release that was made for kite fishing. It obviously didn't fly by itself, just plummeted, and fell apart on impact. We often think lego clutch is strong, but it isn't!

That's what puts me off things like this. One crash, and you need to spend ages rebuilding. Although I guess at least that gives you something to do for an hour while the batteries are charging after a three minute flight.

cheshirecat

Sounds about as much fun as those angry birds jenga. Either you were good and spent all your time building or you kept missing. Either way limited entertainment. Lego is great but we don't need to mix it with everything. (Fake) lego scalextric was equally rubbish.

graphite

JooTog said:

Also, most, if not all of their demo videos use 8 motors, which means 2 kits.

Kits come with 8 motors

I ordered a kit.  Want to check it out.  If you build a design specifically like theirs that is just plates snapped together then every crash will break it apart but you can build better adding a few parts that lock like the small technic arms that won't add much weight and wont shatter as much.

Paperballpark

A few months ago I butchered a Ninjago Airjitzu flyer in an effort to motorise it. I managed to do so, and got the thing spinning pretty damn fast, but it refused to even try to lift the whole contraption. Oh well.