Bladestar is a remote-controlled electric indoor flying toy produced by WowWee

Wow Wee

WowWee Group Limited, an Optimal Group company , is a Hong Kong-based company founded by Richard and Peter Yanofsky. Initially from Canada, the two brothers moved to Hong Kong to form the company in 1982 as an independent research & development and manufacturing outfit...

 under the FlyTech brand name. Bladestar differs from typical helicopter

Helicopter

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...

 and fixed-wing aircraft

Fixed-wing aircraft

A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...

 designs in that the entire wing and body structure rotates, driven by two electric motors mounted 180 degrees apart.

Hardware

• Bladestar
• 2 spare propellors
• 2 pairs of wings
• Infrared
  Infrared
  Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
  
   (IR) remote control
• "Dogfight
  Dogfight
  A dogfight, or dog fight, is a form of aerial combat between fighter aircraft; in particular, combat of maneuver at short range, where each side is aware of the other's presence. Dogfighting first appeared during World War I, shortly after the invention of the airplane...
  
  " accessory fitting for remote control
• Requires 6x AA batteries

The Bladestar is powered by an internal 50 mAh Lithium polymer battery

Lithium ion polymer battery

Lithium-ion polymer batteries, polymer lithium ion, or more commonly lithium polymer batteries are rechargeable batteries...

, and is recharged by connecting to the remote control. The remote control has a throttle slide control on the left, and a 5 button directional control on the right. When in use, the remote control emits an IR signal to provide a reference point to the Bladestar. If the Bladestar loses this signal for 10 seconds (due to remote control being turned off, or aimed in wrong direction), the Bladestars motors will turn off, allowing the Bladestar to descend.

The throttle can be adjusted to make the Bladestar hover, climb or sink. The directional control sends additional IR signals telling the Bladestar to move relative to the remote control: away from remote, towards remote, and right or left. The center button of the directional control sends a 'kill' signal to the Bladestar it is aimed at, causing the motors to lose speed. This is used in the 'dogfight' mode to make an opponents Bladestar lose power and descend to the ground.

The Bladestar has two IR emitters, one located centrally on the top for detecting ceilings, and one on the side of the body for detecting walls. There is one IR detector also mounted on the side, which receives IR signals from the remote control, and reflected IR signals from the top and side emitters. The Bladestar uses these reflected signals to avoid ceilings and walls while flying in autonomous mode.

External links

• Official Site
• Bladestar Home on RoboCommunity - The official WowWee Robotics user community