there’s no better feeling than taking
ordinary items and reorganizing them
into something completely different so
for this video we’re taking lego technic
sets and converting them into powerful
high speed racing drones now you might
be wondering where nate is today he is
off prototyping so for this video it’s
just gonna be you and me and I do have a
confession to share when I was young and
growing up I never got a chance to play
with Lego
honestly the very first time I ever
played with Lego was to make the leg of
gummy video is now currently the number
one video on our channel but that is all
changed this year we’ve teamed up with
Lego the orig to us and said what kind
of cool things could you do with Lego so
this gave us a fantastic opportunity to
put our minds into gear and play with
some lego and I have been playing with a
lot of Lego let me show you what I mean
Lego started sending us all these kits
and my very first experience with Lego
was actually on the floor with my
seven-year-old son where we spent an
afternoon putting together this lego
ninjago ice tank that I believe belongs
to Zane and that was a really cool
experience there were so many different
parts of this that were a complicated
build that taught me more about
engineering mechanics and things of that
nature if you take a look at it there’s
a lot of parts that move the
disassembled and when the tank tracks
move it actually throws a transmission
the gear that kind of cycles of this
giant whatever it is in the back and my
favorite part is it’s got a little
cannon that actually shoots this semi
tractor-trailer unit was really fun to
build I learned a lot about mechanical
engineering especially in the back
there’s a dual axle differential which
allows the four tires to turn
independently of each other I thought
that was a pretty clever system and you
can see there’s all kinds of knobs on
this thing you can steer the front tires
the doors open and close the seats in
the front will recline in the back here
we’ve got two lifting cranes that take
this cargo container and can actually
lift it up and set it down in the ground
there’s also a place for the fifth wheel
to attach and you can raise and lower
the trailer using this other little knob
on the side taking a look under the hood
you can see the engine actually has
Pistons that move up and down as you
drive it and perhaps the biggest project
yet is this 4,000 piece industrial
digger that I made it’s super complex a
lot of moving parts and it looks
absolutely insane
[Music]
so after countless days playing with
Lego technics building all of these
different projects I would consider
myself fairly well acquainted with how
these parts work
so when Lego came to me and said what
can we do that’s really cool unique and
out of the box one of the first things
that came to my mind was building a Lego
drone now we don’t want to just build
any kind of drone no siree we want to
build high-speed racing drones which
means these things not only need to be
able to look cool they need to be
extremely stable and withstand
vibrational forces of brushless motors
spending over 30,000 rotations per
minute
here’s the basic idea we’re gonna start
by building four identical legs for the
drone then sandwich them between two
Lego plates we’re gonna add motors
propellers and fpv camera and then drop
in this thing we call the brain that
connects everything up and makes it all
work now if these drone prototypes
actually work Lego corporation is gonna
fly us over to Rhode Island to get
together with the hosts of the rubric
ulis channel Tyler and Dimitri and pit
them together one-on-one in an actual
high-speed drone race in an indoor arena
and through the magic of editing that
video has already happened there’s a
link down in the description right now
you can go and see the results of
whether or not those drones actually
worked go check it out now we’ve got two
main parts of this build one is the
actual build which is 100% Lego technics
and the second are all the drone
components that we’re going to bring in
and lay on top of it we’re gonna be
doing that in collaboration with a real
drone racing pilot I’ll introduce you to
in a minute but first let me show you
how to get started on the legs we’re
gonna be making four different legs for
this platform all of them are absolutely
identical I’m not gonna list all the
names of the parts here because there’s
too many of them but if you go to our
website we do have a PDF that you can
download that will take you step-by-step
through the rest of this build in the
meantime just take a really good look at
the pieces we got here and let’s click
them together
[Applause]
now you notice we got four different
arms here that are absolutely identical
now you can have fun with these you can
change the color of the main support
beams you can change the color of the
inside beams we went ahead and did
orange and gray and white here because
to us this is going to end up looking
kinda like a x-wing
on the end here which is gonna be the
center part you can see we put these
blue posts and we need those because
that’s going to help us connect them to
the frame next now the frames we’re
using are 5 by 7 open frames we’re gonna
be using two of them and I prepped this
one already by taking 4 little posts and
using the single side pushing down into
the base there there’s a little Ridge so
you can’t push it any further and with
four of those poking up we’re ready to
add the arms because these are
completely symmetrical on either side it
doesn’t matter which way you click them
in you can literally click them in
upside down right side up it doesn’t
matter because really it’s the same on
both sides
with the two parts of our plate
assembled you can see this resembles an
X now because these posts in the middle
you can see these can open freely to the
center but they won’t go any further
outward because the post gets in the way
and that’s exactly what we want
the next thing to do is to be able to
reinforce these so there’s not much
wobble and no play to them at all so for
that we’re going to be building a
sandwich to compress the legs together
then use two m15 support beams to build
a friction fit and lock the beams in
place these two pieces are the parts we
want to build next we’ll show you what
they’re made of in just a second but I
just want to focus attention on this one
you can see we actually built a little
camera mount into this where our fpv
cameras gonna sit fpv stands for first
person view and those are like the eyes
of the drone pilot is they’re racing
down the track that’s gonna be sitting
right here on these brackets for the top
and bottom sandwich plates we’re gonna
actually build it in three different
pieces we’re gonna build the top plate
first then we’re gonna build the camera
mount and then we’re gonna build the
bottom plate and these are the different
pieces we’re gonna be using this is how
they go together all right with a few
snaps a few clicks we’ve got our top
piece finished you can see we’ve got
corner brackets holding everything
together and the reason we went with
corner brackets is because that’s going
to be our friction point for pushing the
arms together and creating tension let’s
do the camera mount next
[Applause]
so right there we have our support beam
and our camera mount complete all we
have left to do is finish our lower
support race
[Music]
there’s our lower support frame and you
can see it’s got two pegs sticking up
which will marry perfectly into the base
of our camera mount here when those
click together we now have assembled
unit our camera sembly and our lower
frame will be one piece now we’re just
going to put this together like a
sandwich we start with the top piece we
take the X and place it in the center
making sure that our corner brackets are
facing down toward it then we take our
bottom piece with the corner brackets
facing upward toward it and we’re gonna
fit those in place and this is the part
where now we determine which is front
and which is back because the camera
mount is facing forward now if you look
closely you can see this m15 beam
doesn’t quite line up with the holes and
that’s exactly what we want we have to
stretch the X apart to get these to lock
into place which creates a friction fit
and reduces the vibration that’s a good
thing we want to do the same thing on
the back so we’re going to take another
m15 beam with two black pegs and pop
those into position as well and just
like that we’ve got the basic frame for
our stretch X racing drone complete now
there are a couple things we need to do
before moving on first of all this is
just sandwiched together it’s literally
gonna fall apart so we are gonna have to
bend the rules a little bit and use some
fasteners to clamp everything together
now the holes and the Technic beams are
actually the perfect size for
accommodating number-10 machine bolts so
I went down to the local hardware store
I picked up one and a quarter inch
machine bolts that pop all the way
through and the hex nuts are just big
enough that you can screw them down from
the bottom and they will line up almost
flush which is gonna be a really good
thing for us I got three quarter inch m4
that popped through these holes almost
seamlessly and support beams and that
just makes sure nothing is gonna come
apart it’s completely optional it will
work without it but if you want to just
be extra sure and actually race these
things we would recommend it all the
essentials are now in place so it’s time
to add the drone components and for that
I’m bringing in my friend Spencer aka
drone pilot sputter so I’m Spencer I’ve
been flying drones for about two years I
fly under the handle of sputter and
drone racing is one of the fastest
growing sports with over 30,000 people
flying every year I’ve been to some of
the largest drone racing events and
flown with some of the top pilots of the
world I got together with Spencer
because up to this point I really had no
experience with disassembling drones and
putting them together at first I was
looking at using some other companies
parts and putting together but then
Spencer you came over with some of your
equipment your actual pro drone racing
drones which made a lot easier to figure
how we’re gonna make it work with this
lego base let’s take a look at some of
your components and tell us about what
they are and how they work on a drone
there’s a couple of main components they
all work together they’re
interchangeable kind of like computer
parts would be you start here with the
camera this is what the pilot actually
sees it sends an analog video signal up
to these goggles so that I can see it’s
kind of like real world virtual reality
yeah very much like playing a video game
down inside the drone there’s a couple
other parts that help me communicate
with the drone with my transmitter and
also gives me this video feed there are
six main components that are absolutely
essential to making the racing drone
work first of all I got the flight
controller the flight controller is like
a little computer that knows what the
orientation is of the drone the next
thing you need are the esc s the esc s
are the parts that actually give power
to the motors until which motors been
faster and slower the third thing is the
motors these motors a light weight
they’ll spin up to 30,000 rpm and then
up to a 15 to one thrust to weight ratio
the camera here in the front transmits
to these goggles so I can see what the
drone sees it’s like being inside the
cockpit and this camera transmits in
analog which is actually an older
technology but it’s faster to the
goggles if it was transmitting digitally
the latency would be so much of a gap
that the drone could actually crash
before you see it happen along with the
camera the drone has a video transmitter
which is basically just to send the
signals back to these goggles the
transmitter antenna actually receives a
signal from your remote control yeah so
whichever way you turn it that’s the way
the drone goes and you do it with one of
these things there’s a couple different
protocols of these use this is probably
the most popular one now essentially
what we’ve done is we’ve taken all those
components and in the spirit of Lego we
want to make this as plug-and-play as
possible so we developed this thing we
call it the squiddy we were actually
really impressed about this we used a 5
by 7 open frame and we’re able to find
circuit boards that stack together and
fit nicely right down to the center you
see all the wiring flows down through
the bottom and we’ve designed them with
banana connectors so that we can plug
into each individual motor and the
camera as well these red and black wires
on the back will connect to the lipo
battery that powers this it doesn’t get
a lot of time in flight really only will
last for about two to three minutes when
you’re really powering these things out
the batteries themselves are about just
under 15 volts but can pump out up to a
hundred amps which is absolutely insane
because weight is so important when
racing all the smart electronics that
would add safety features are removed
from these these are those raw batteries
you can be careful when you charge them
thing I love about this is
you just take the top panel off your
drone frame pop this into place connect
everything up and it’s ready to fly but
right now let’s just take this top plate
replace it with our squiddy and move on
to adding the motors next these little
cameras are only about twenty to thirty
bucks it’s really cool because if you
put the screws in beforehand they
actually just snuggle right into these
brackets perfectly you can literally
just pop them into place and they stay
in place but the camera itself is still
adjustable so we’ve just dropped the
fasteners into place here we’ve got
everything pretty well assembled and
we’ve routed the wire so that it looks
pretty clean from the underside we’ve
got three different cables for each
motor running out to each respective
area we have two little wires here that
will run to our LEDs that we have just
going through the center at the back
that little tail sticking out the back
that looks like a turtle tail is
actually the transmitter for the video
transmitter the VTX and then we also
took the receiver wires
we’re very thin they look like bug
antenna just puts the wires at a near 90
degree angle which means we have the
best chance of being able to control the
drone we also took a velcro strap and
drilled it through these two holes so we
can take a battery and attach it to the
bottom that way if you don’t feel like
building a landing gear for this thing
you can actually just strap the battery
on you’re good to go
keeps it very lightweight the little
pieces that are in the ends of the arms
here are these little eight shape pin
connectors they have two holes in them
which we found are absolutely perfect
for attaching the motors now I’ve still
got them attached in here so you could
just attach the motor but the reason I
like this design so much is you could
have multiple motors and if one of them
fails you can just click this out click
the new one into place plug the wires
back in and you’re good to go
within seconds most motors use standard
connectors which just happens with the
exact same dimension as this LEGO
Technic part just happens to be
absolutely perfect exactly 16
millimeters so this just connects right
here onto these motor mounts and then we
put two screws right through on these
motors I’ve added these connectors so
you can swap them out very quickly now
all we have to do is make three more of
these swap them out with their existing
so we have all the motors connected and
attached now I just went ahead and
randomly plugged all these different
cables in so we don’t actually know if
the motors are spinning the right way or
not the direction the motor is spinning
is very important to actually getting
the drone to fly these drones run an
open-source software called beta flight
we just plug it in and if we can change
motor directions this is called a smoke
stopper if there’s any short circuits
and our electronics this will prevent
them from frying now when you are
attaching the propellers here’s the only
thing that you need to know you want
these things to cut away from you so
when you line up the two propeller
blades it almost should look like two
knife blades cutting away from you one
is gonna rotate counterclockwise the
other one’s gonna rotate clockwise so if
you look at them in the line of the
blades you just want them both to be
pointing away and of course on the back
they cut the opposite direction they cut
away to the back they cut away to the
front you got those on correctly it’s
time to add the nuts oh by the way I
also put together some of these cross
beams that we can put on top for two
reasons one it’ll help protect some of
the circuitry if we do crash and number
two because we actually used them when
we went in filmed with Lego and if
you’ve already forgot we have a link
down in the description where you can go
see that video right now and check it
out for yourself there were some
unanticipated events that happen there
may or may not have been a mid-air
collision you’re gonna have to go see it
for yourself it was a great event
put a really fun twist on this whole
project so links in the description go
check it out there you go guys our drone
is finished and ready for what we call a
hover test this means we get to hook up
the battery take it outside and let our
expert drone pilot flight or a little
bit just to see if we made all the
connections correctly shall we proceed
very nice I’m gonna do a little
punch-out three two one oh that’s
all right next Olympic sport right here
drone flipping Lego drone flipping yes
nailed it
that was awesome that drone flies
fantastic it flies exactly like a real
drone I could hardly even tell the
difference racing drones are typically
made out of carbon fiber because it’s so
strong and light this Lego drone is only
a little bit heavier than the carbon
fiber racing drums would I normally race
with it flies great now as Spencer
mentioned these propellers went about
30,000 rpm he said don’t get your
fingers in York because that cut
actually sliced down to the bone so just
for fun I went picked up some hot tugs
to kind of simulate what would actually
happen
we tied this thing to a 2×4 so we can
get this thing spinning as full throttle
and then I’m just gonna dip a hot dog
down into it and see what it does okay
it’s our support beam the 2×4 actually
lifts it up and things got a lot of
thrust so now we’ve got two more support
beams that I’m standing on and the idea
is we’re just going to come in at a safe
distance and bring the hot dog in here
fire it up that was a lot less gruesome
a lot more crisp than it was which means
those are sharp well I feel like we’ve
learned something new these things are
not kids toys here’s a fun fact for you
these Lego drones that we’ve made can
achieve speeds anywhere between 60 to
100 miles per hour all right we’re out
here at the track you can see we have
some professional pilots racing behind
us we’re gonna put our Lego drone up in
the air and let it compete and see how
it does we’ve made some modifications to
this you can see it has a base so it
looks nice and mean for actual racing
you might want to take this off but
we’ll see how it goes we’ve put a 3d
printed GoPro mount on top of this drone
so you can see what it’s like
all right we got the radar gun we’re
gonna see how fast these things go 86
whoo 81 83 miles an hour that is fast
hey guys the fun doesn’t end here go
check out the video we made with
ridiculous we’ve got it right up here
for you on the top left you want to
check out some more King around in
videos we’ve got those for you on the
bottom left and if you want to subscribe
and join the club go ahead and click the bomb I’ll see you next video
ordinary items and reorganizing them
into something completely different so
for this video we’re taking lego technic
sets and converting them into powerful
high speed racing drones now you might
be wondering where nate is today he is
off prototyping so for this video it’s
just gonna be you and me and I do have a
confession to share when I was young and
growing up I never got a chance to play
with Lego
honestly the very first time I ever
played with Lego was to make the leg of
gummy video is now currently the number
one video on our channel but that is all
changed this year we’ve teamed up with
Lego the orig to us and said what kind
of cool things could you do with Lego so
this gave us a fantastic opportunity to
put our minds into gear and play with
some lego and I have been playing with a
lot of Lego let me show you what I mean
Lego started sending us all these kits
and my very first experience with Lego
was actually on the floor with my
seven-year-old son where we spent an
afternoon putting together this lego
ninjago ice tank that I believe belongs
to Zane and that was a really cool
experience there were so many different
parts of this that were a complicated
build that taught me more about
engineering mechanics and things of that
nature if you take a look at it there’s
a lot of parts that move the
disassembled and when the tank tracks
move it actually throws a transmission
the gear that kind of cycles of this
giant whatever it is in the back and my
favorite part is it’s got a little
cannon that actually shoots this semi
tractor-trailer unit was really fun to
build I learned a lot about mechanical
engineering especially in the back
there’s a dual axle differential which
allows the four tires to turn
independently of each other I thought
that was a pretty clever system and you
can see there’s all kinds of knobs on
this thing you can steer the front tires
the doors open and close the seats in
the front will recline in the back here
we’ve got two lifting cranes that take
this cargo container and can actually
lift it up and set it down in the ground
there’s also a place for the fifth wheel
to attach and you can raise and lower
the trailer using this other little knob
on the side taking a look under the hood
you can see the engine actually has
Pistons that move up and down as you
drive it and perhaps the biggest project
yet is this 4,000 piece industrial
digger that I made it’s super complex a
lot of moving parts and it looks
absolutely insane
[Music]
so after countless days playing with
Lego technics building all of these
different projects I would consider
myself fairly well acquainted with how
these parts work
so when Lego came to me and said what
can we do that’s really cool unique and
out of the box one of the first things
that came to my mind was building a Lego
drone now we don’t want to just build
any kind of drone no siree we want to
build high-speed racing drones which
means these things not only need to be
able to look cool they need to be
extremely stable and withstand
vibrational forces of brushless motors
spending over 30,000 rotations per
minute
here’s the basic idea we’re gonna start
by building four identical legs for the
drone then sandwich them between two
Lego plates we’re gonna add motors
propellers and fpv camera and then drop
in this thing we call the brain that
connects everything up and makes it all
work now if these drone prototypes
actually work Lego corporation is gonna
fly us over to Rhode Island to get
together with the hosts of the rubric
ulis channel Tyler and Dimitri and pit
them together one-on-one in an actual
high-speed drone race in an indoor arena
and through the magic of editing that
video has already happened there’s a
link down in the description right now
you can go and see the results of
whether or not those drones actually
worked go check it out now we’ve got two
main parts of this build one is the
actual build which is 100% Lego technics
and the second are all the drone
components that we’re going to bring in
and lay on top of it we’re gonna be
doing that in collaboration with a real
drone racing pilot I’ll introduce you to
in a minute but first let me show you
how to get started on the legs we’re
gonna be making four different legs for
this platform all of them are absolutely
identical I’m not gonna list all the
names of the parts here because there’s
too many of them but if you go to our
website we do have a PDF that you can
download that will take you step-by-step
through the rest of this build in the
meantime just take a really good look at
the pieces we got here and let’s click
them together
[Applause]
now you notice we got four different
arms here that are absolutely identical
now you can have fun with these you can
change the color of the main support
beams you can change the color of the
inside beams we went ahead and did
orange and gray and white here because
to us this is going to end up looking
kinda like a x-wing
on the end here which is gonna be the
center part you can see we put these
blue posts and we need those because
that’s going to help us connect them to
the frame next now the frames we’re
using are 5 by 7 open frames we’re gonna
be using two of them and I prepped this
one already by taking 4 little posts and
using the single side pushing down into
the base there there’s a little Ridge so
you can’t push it any further and with
four of those poking up we’re ready to
add the arms because these are
completely symmetrical on either side it
doesn’t matter which way you click them
in you can literally click them in
upside down right side up it doesn’t
matter because really it’s the same on
both sides
with the two parts of our plate
assembled you can see this resembles an
X now because these posts in the middle
you can see these can open freely to the
center but they won’t go any further
outward because the post gets in the way
and that’s exactly what we want
the next thing to do is to be able to
reinforce these so there’s not much
wobble and no play to them at all so for
that we’re going to be building a
sandwich to compress the legs together
then use two m15 support beams to build
a friction fit and lock the beams in
place these two pieces are the parts we
want to build next we’ll show you what
they’re made of in just a second but I
just want to focus attention on this one
you can see we actually built a little
camera mount into this where our fpv
cameras gonna sit fpv stands for first
person view and those are like the eyes
of the drone pilot is they’re racing
down the track that’s gonna be sitting
right here on these brackets for the top
and bottom sandwich plates we’re gonna
actually build it in three different
pieces we’re gonna build the top plate
first then we’re gonna build the camera
mount and then we’re gonna build the
bottom plate and these are the different
pieces we’re gonna be using this is how
they go together all right with a few
snaps a few clicks we’ve got our top
piece finished you can see we’ve got
corner brackets holding everything
together and the reason we went with
corner brackets is because that’s going
to be our friction point for pushing the
arms together and creating tension let’s
do the camera mount next
[Applause]
so right there we have our support beam
and our camera mount complete all we
have left to do is finish our lower
support race
[Music]
there’s our lower support frame and you
can see it’s got two pegs sticking up
which will marry perfectly into the base
of our camera mount here when those
click together we now have assembled
unit our camera sembly and our lower
frame will be one piece now we’re just
going to put this together like a
sandwich we start with the top piece we
take the X and place it in the center
making sure that our corner brackets are
facing down toward it then we take our
bottom piece with the corner brackets
facing upward toward it and we’re gonna
fit those in place and this is the part
where now we determine which is front
and which is back because the camera
mount is facing forward now if you look
closely you can see this m15 beam
doesn’t quite line up with the holes and
that’s exactly what we want we have to
stretch the X apart to get these to lock
into place which creates a friction fit
and reduces the vibration that’s a good
thing we want to do the same thing on
the back so we’re going to take another
m15 beam with two black pegs and pop
those into position as well and just
like that we’ve got the basic frame for
our stretch X racing drone complete now
there are a couple things we need to do
before moving on first of all this is
just sandwiched together it’s literally
gonna fall apart so we are gonna have to
bend the rules a little bit and use some
fasteners to clamp everything together
now the holes and the Technic beams are
actually the perfect size for
accommodating number-10 machine bolts so
I went down to the local hardware store
I picked up one and a quarter inch
machine bolts that pop all the way
through and the hex nuts are just big
enough that you can screw them down from
the bottom and they will line up almost
flush which is gonna be a really good
thing for us I got three quarter inch m4
that popped through these holes almost
seamlessly and support beams and that
just makes sure nothing is gonna come
apart it’s completely optional it will
work without it but if you want to just
be extra sure and actually race these
things we would recommend it all the
essentials are now in place so it’s time
to add the drone components and for that
I’m bringing in my friend Spencer aka
drone pilot sputter so I’m Spencer I’ve
been flying drones for about two years I
fly under the handle of sputter and
drone racing is one of the fastest
growing sports with over 30,000 people
flying every year I’ve been to some of
the largest drone racing events and
flown with some of the top pilots of the
world I got together with Spencer
because up to this point I really had no
experience with disassembling drones and
putting them together at first I was
looking at using some other companies
parts and putting together but then
Spencer you came over with some of your
equipment your actual pro drone racing
drones which made a lot easier to figure
how we’re gonna make it work with this
lego base let’s take a look at some of
your components and tell us about what
they are and how they work on a drone
there’s a couple of main components they
all work together they’re
interchangeable kind of like computer
parts would be you start here with the
camera this is what the pilot actually
sees it sends an analog video signal up
to these goggles so that I can see it’s
kind of like real world virtual reality
yeah very much like playing a video game
down inside the drone there’s a couple
other parts that help me communicate
with the drone with my transmitter and
also gives me this video feed there are
six main components that are absolutely
essential to making the racing drone
work first of all I got the flight
controller the flight controller is like
a little computer that knows what the
orientation is of the drone the next
thing you need are the esc s the esc s
are the parts that actually give power
to the motors until which motors been
faster and slower the third thing is the
motors these motors a light weight
they’ll spin up to 30,000 rpm and then
up to a 15 to one thrust to weight ratio
the camera here in the front transmits
to these goggles so I can see what the
drone sees it’s like being inside the
cockpit and this camera transmits in
analog which is actually an older
technology but it’s faster to the
goggles if it was transmitting digitally
the latency would be so much of a gap
that the drone could actually crash
before you see it happen along with the
camera the drone has a video transmitter
which is basically just to send the
signals back to these goggles the
transmitter antenna actually receives a
signal from your remote control yeah so
whichever way you turn it that’s the way
the drone goes and you do it with one of
these things there’s a couple different
protocols of these use this is probably
the most popular one now essentially
what we’ve done is we’ve taken all those
components and in the spirit of Lego we
want to make this as plug-and-play as
possible so we developed this thing we
call it the squiddy we were actually
really impressed about this we used a 5
by 7 open frame and we’re able to find
circuit boards that stack together and
fit nicely right down to the center you
see all the wiring flows down through
the bottom and we’ve designed them with
banana connectors so that we can plug
into each individual motor and the
camera as well these red and black wires
on the back will connect to the lipo
battery that powers this it doesn’t get
a lot of time in flight really only will
last for about two to three minutes when
you’re really powering these things out
the batteries themselves are about just
under 15 volts but can pump out up to a
hundred amps which is absolutely insane
because weight is so important when
racing all the smart electronics that
would add safety features are removed
from these these are those raw batteries
you can be careful when you charge them
thing I love about this is
you just take the top panel off your
drone frame pop this into place connect
everything up and it’s ready to fly but
right now let’s just take this top plate
replace it with our squiddy and move on
to adding the motors next these little
cameras are only about twenty to thirty
bucks it’s really cool because if you
put the screws in beforehand they
actually just snuggle right into these
brackets perfectly you can literally
just pop them into place and they stay
in place but the camera itself is still
adjustable so we’ve just dropped the
fasteners into place here we’ve got
everything pretty well assembled and
we’ve routed the wire so that it looks
pretty clean from the underside we’ve
got three different cables for each
motor running out to each respective
area we have two little wires here that
will run to our LEDs that we have just
going through the center at the back
that little tail sticking out the back
that looks like a turtle tail is
actually the transmitter for the video
transmitter the VTX and then we also
took the receiver wires
we’re very thin they look like bug
antenna just puts the wires at a near 90
degree angle which means we have the
best chance of being able to control the
drone we also took a velcro strap and
drilled it through these two holes so we
can take a battery and attach it to the
bottom that way if you don’t feel like
building a landing gear for this thing
you can actually just strap the battery
on you’re good to go
keeps it very lightweight the little
pieces that are in the ends of the arms
here are these little eight shape pin
connectors they have two holes in them
which we found are absolutely perfect
for attaching the motors now I’ve still
got them attached in here so you could
just attach the motor but the reason I
like this design so much is you could
have multiple motors and if one of them
fails you can just click this out click
the new one into place plug the wires
back in and you’re good to go
within seconds most motors use standard
connectors which just happens with the
exact same dimension as this LEGO
Technic part just happens to be
absolutely perfect exactly 16
millimeters so this just connects right
here onto these motor mounts and then we
put two screws right through on these
motors I’ve added these connectors so
you can swap them out very quickly now
all we have to do is make three more of
these swap them out with their existing
so we have all the motors connected and
attached now I just went ahead and
randomly plugged all these different
cables in so we don’t actually know if
the motors are spinning the right way or
not the direction the motor is spinning
is very important to actually getting
the drone to fly these drones run an
open-source software called beta flight
we just plug it in and if we can change
motor directions this is called a smoke
stopper if there’s any short circuits
and our electronics this will prevent
them from frying now when you are
attaching the propellers here’s the only
thing that you need to know you want
these things to cut away from you so
when you line up the two propeller
blades it almost should look like two
knife blades cutting away from you one
is gonna rotate counterclockwise the
other one’s gonna rotate clockwise so if
you look at them in the line of the
blades you just want them both to be
pointing away and of course on the back
they cut the opposite direction they cut
away to the back they cut away to the
front you got those on correctly it’s
time to add the nuts oh by the way I
also put together some of these cross
beams that we can put on top for two
reasons one it’ll help protect some of
the circuitry if we do crash and number
two because we actually used them when
we went in filmed with Lego and if
you’ve already forgot we have a link
down in the description where you can go
see that video right now and check it
out for yourself there were some
unanticipated events that happen there
may or may not have been a mid-air
collision you’re gonna have to go see it
for yourself it was a great event
put a really fun twist on this whole
project so links in the description go
check it out there you go guys our drone
is finished and ready for what we call a
hover test this means we get to hook up
the battery take it outside and let our
expert drone pilot flight or a little
bit just to see if we made all the
connections correctly shall we proceed
very nice I’m gonna do a little
punch-out three two one oh that’s
all right next Olympic sport right here
drone flipping Lego drone flipping yes
nailed it
that was awesome that drone flies
fantastic it flies exactly like a real
drone I could hardly even tell the
difference racing drones are typically
made out of carbon fiber because it’s so
strong and light this Lego drone is only
a little bit heavier than the carbon
fiber racing drums would I normally race
with it flies great now as Spencer
mentioned these propellers went about
30,000 rpm he said don’t get your
fingers in York because that cut
actually sliced down to the bone so just
for fun I went picked up some hot tugs
to kind of simulate what would actually
happen
we tied this thing to a 2×4 so we can
get this thing spinning as full throttle
and then I’m just gonna dip a hot dog
down into it and see what it does okay
it’s our support beam the 2×4 actually
lifts it up and things got a lot of
thrust so now we’ve got two more support
beams that I’m standing on and the idea
is we’re just going to come in at a safe
distance and bring the hot dog in here
fire it up that was a lot less gruesome
a lot more crisp than it was which means
those are sharp well I feel like we’ve
learned something new these things are
not kids toys here’s a fun fact for you
these Lego drones that we’ve made can
achieve speeds anywhere between 60 to
100 miles per hour all right we’re out
here at the track you can see we have
some professional pilots racing behind
us we’re gonna put our Lego drone up in
the air and let it compete and see how
it does we’ve made some modifications to
this you can see it has a base so it
looks nice and mean for actual racing
you might want to take this off but
we’ll see how it goes we’ve put a 3d
printed GoPro mount on top of this drone
so you can see what it’s like
all right we got the radar gun we’re
gonna see how fast these things go 86
whoo 81 83 miles an hour that is fast
hey guys the fun doesn’t end here go
check out the video we made with
ridiculous we’ve got it right up here
for you on the top left you want to
check out some more King around in
videos we’ve got those for you on the
bottom left and if you want to subscribe
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