At CES this year, toymaker WowWee continues it€™s tradition of taking what had once been military- or millionaire-grade tech and selling it for less than the price of dinner for two at The Olive Garden.

Our favorite new creation is the FlyTech Bladestar a $50 autonomous flying robot. Essentially a helicopter blade with a set of perpendicular rotors to give it stability, the Bladestar uses infrared sensors to detect its proximity to obstacles walls, ceilings, pets and parents €”and avoid collisions. At least sometimes. The models we saw did a fair amount of crashing.

WowWee techs blamed that on the bright lights in the ballroom that messed with the infrared sensors.

In any case, it'€™s just as much fun to watch whether it flying or crashing.—Sean Captain

Want more? Check out our entire CES 2008 coverage here.