helicopter blade

02.15.12

WowWee'€™s Robo Copter

By popsci Posted 01.06.2008 at 10:51 am 0 Comments

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.

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