Wowwee's FlyTech Dragonfly in action

While the Robosapien, Roboreptile, and basically all of Wowwee's gizmos demand an (understandable) level of respect, the FlyTech Dragonfly (quite literally) takes this "robotic toy" gig to another level. While the FCC got its paws on the fluttering animal not too long ago, it now appears that citizens over at T3 got a chance to give it whirl, and the results are indeed impressive. Relying on "brute flapping-power to remain airborne," this creature reportedly worked "amazingly well," and the rechargeable battery pack will purportedly keep it in flight for "around 15 minutes." Although the bug should draw a crowd at next month's CES, there's no need to wait around to get a sneak peek at what this tombo is capable of, as the kind folks at T3 are delivering a hands-on video (after the break) to make us all green with envy.

[Sudi @ Dec 16th 2006 9:29PM]

amwesome.. kinda loud though....

[tchiseen @ Dec 20th 2006 9:37AM]

very cool. as an aeronautical engineer though, it's not really impressive. proper scientists have studied how dragonflies fly, and this craft is a pretty crude representation of their flight. this craft has a very wild phugoid, and is unable to hover. in real life, dragonflies' wings move like oars of a boat, they change incidence relative to the flow, and this allows them to hover and even fly backwards. this toy does not really present any new technology. the idea of flapping wildly has been around since before the wright brothers. still, i'd get one :D

[justdave @ Dec 16th 2006 8:55PM]

Genius. You can't beat flying toys... although it makes a funky noise - unless that's just part of the background music? Weird.

[nikster @ Dec 16th 2006 9:04PM]

This is awesome... 15 minutes is pretty respectable, too, battery powered copters get the same. I want a hummingbird though, more stable in the air...

[Paul @ Dec 16th 2006 9:05PM]

that thing is sweet, any clue on price?

[-Tj- @ Dec 16th 2006 9:13PM]

I dunno about this one... Innovative for sure, but I couldn't help but be irritated by the way the thing kept diving and climbing, diving and climbing, diving and climbing... Unless that was pilot inexperience or a related problem, I was kinda hoping to see some smoother flight.

[MosquitoControl @ Dec 16th 2006 9:24PM]

Probably going to be expensive, and seems to need a lot of room.

I'll stick to the $40 Picco Z.

[rxse7en @ Dec 16th 2006 10:00PM]

Looks like a toy ornithopter fit to be place under Muad Dib's Christmas tree!

[Jeremy @ Dec 17th 2006 1:43PM]

I liked the Dune comment there. It does remind me of Ornithopters.

hehhehehe...

[Peter @ Dec 16th 2006 10:05PM]

If you got a few of these in black done up to look like real bugs before word really gets out that these things exist you would scare the crap out of people if you flew a couple into a room. It would look just like a real giant bug.

[Phantom1219 @ Dec 16th 2006 11:08PM]

Pretty cool toy. If a normal company can design this, imagine what the military can do.

[Richard Lai @ Dec 17th 2006 12:05AM]

I was hoping it would be able to hover still in the air; maybe that's what we can expect from their next generation bug-toy.

[liquid @ Dec 17th 2006 2:42AM]

pretty damn sweet, but as with every other flying toy the main thing that keeps me from ever buying any of them is the bat life is just extremely way too low. 15min, come on. As soon as i can get at least 1 full hour of play with any of these flying toys, thats when ill buy one.

[mjeelani @ Dec 17th 2006 2:43AM]

check out the "other" video at http://www.robotsrule.com/html/flytech-dragonfly.php

Pretty coool :)

[umijin @ Dec 17th 2006 6:18AM]

I have only one question: How much? :-)

[Bad Beaver @ Dec 17th 2006 7:52AM]

Uhm, so what exactly makes this thing "robotic"? I mean come on, I had the same thing in the shape of a flying fish 15 years ago. Powered by the almighty rubberband and not remote controlled. Great thing to hassle people in the dunes with anyway. So this is the same, but with a motor. Yawn. Give me back that flying fish any day. It had a nice element of unpredictability to it.

[Mape @ Dec 17th 2006 10:22AM]

Around a year ago I saw a demonstration at the faculty of aerospace engineering at the university of TU Delft in the Netherlands of a very similar flying robot. It was also able to fly for around 15 minutes and is capable to carry a small camera.
Bellow you can see the link of the video which I made with a bad quality digital camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XLbDZT7LNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv0TmK3P228

[Lachlan @ Dec 22nd 2006 10:40PM]

p.s. i guess its not that small. Btw the jerky way it moves is ugly and creeps me out a bit along with the sound. I can just imagine 10 billion of them each mounted with poison dart shooters taking over the world lol.

[jessew @ Dec 17th 2006 2:18PM]

Add Airsoft payload and we have a new toy I can really dig.

[plh2034 @ Jan 12th 2007 4:01PM]

How is this a robot. It's just remote controlled wings. I expect a robot to interact with it's surrondings.
Not impressed

[cjpmedic @ Feb 9th 2007 2:35AM]

best 50 bucks I'll ever spend!