Marketing Hype or Real?

mctrivia

ThinkGeek.com is probably the coolest geek site around. Yes they are expensive but they find cool stuff. I got there monthly news letter today and saw this:

Metal Gyro USB 3-Ch R/C Helicopter - Better control... plus metal!

Now I have played with a few of these little RC Chopers and they are annoying because by the time you manege to get its flight to stabilize the battery has usually gone dead or they are about to crash.(well at least when I try) they claim that this one has a gyroscope on board that lets it self stabilize its flight. Think it actual can stabilize and allow you to just control up/down, left right like it says or is it just marketing hype and you need to painstakingly play with trims and all that other stuff?

I am trying to find something even a 5 year old could fly.

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kwinn

I do know a gyro can go great things for stability, but it has to be done correctly so it could be true.

Cluso99

Ask Drac. He has one that he flies around the house. Quite nifty.

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IRobot2

Well I can not say for sure about the one on ThinkGeek but my friend has a decent size one that has a gyro in it and it is still hard as hell to fly. I cant remember but I think it has a lot to do with keeping it from going in circles more than it does keeping it at a stable level of flight... or something like that....

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Alex Burke
"Beware of computer programmers that carry screwdrivers." -Leonard Brandwein

mctrivia

Yes going in circles is what needs fixing

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24 bit LCD Breakout Board now in. $21.99 has backlight driver and touch sensitive decoder.

Leon

A real helicopter is difficult to fly, as well.

Leon

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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM

mctrivia

That may be but there is no reason why with the right electronics it could not be easy.

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24 bit LCD Breakout Board now in. $21.99 has backlight driver and touch sensitive decoder.

IRobot2

One would think so. But I have heard that it is apparently super difficult to fly helicopters due to all the real world factors that have to be accounted for every second. I had a friend of a friend correct me one evening when I said it looked easy. He was telling me all the things that are going on at once just to keep the thing flying in a straight line.

I know NASA had a couple of remote and robotic helicopters they were working on a few years back. ( http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/systems/system.cfm?System=13 ) As every one here would know we as humans take a lot of visual cues that computers don't have (or we have to program). I remember seeing a prototype of one and it had so many computers packed in it that it looked like a flying data center. I think they finally got it down... but I don't see to many of these things flying around combat fields, or at least I have not heard of any. Its got to be tremendously difficult.

EDIT: Here are some videos of the autonomous robotic helicopters. Pretty neat stuff. ( http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/systems/systemVideo.cfm?System=13&Video=106 )

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Alex Burke
"Beware of computer programmers that carry screwdrivers." -Leonard Brandwein

Post Edited (IRobot2) : 12/4/2009 9:48:58 PM GMT