1
00:00:00,520 --> 00:00:03,600
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house Stuff Works dot com.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:14,520
Speaker 1: We're smart Happens Hi. I'm are so branding with today's question,

3
00:00:14,880 --> 00:00:18,959
Speaker 1: what is the difference between a good toy helicopter and

4
00:00:19,040 --> 00:00:22,560
Speaker 1: a bad toy helicopter? And the reason why this question

5
00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:27,200
Speaker 1: came up is because my kids, the twins, got little

6
00:00:27,320 --> 00:00:31,320
Speaker 1: indoor helicopters for Christmas. And these things they're the kind

7
00:00:31,320 --> 00:00:33,640
Speaker 1: of thing you would get at the mall uh and

8
00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:36,560
Speaker 1: they were given to them by my mother. And these

9
00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:40,400
Speaker 1: were fantastic toys in the sense that the twins love them.

10
00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:44,560
Speaker 1: They played with them all day Christmas Day. But even

11
00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:48,640
Speaker 1: though they were radio controlled, or really not really radio controlled,

12
00:00:48,680 --> 00:00:51,960
Speaker 1: but in this case they were infrared controlled helicopters, so

13
00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:54,000
Speaker 1: you were supposed to be able to steer them with

14
00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:57,720
Speaker 1: a little control box, you could not actually steer them

15
00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:00,880
Speaker 1: very well. And that meant that they crashed into walls

16
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:04,120
Speaker 1: and lamps and just about any obstacle there was in

17
00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:07,440
Speaker 1: the house. And by the end of Christmas Day these

18
00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:10,720
Speaker 1: things could no longer fly. They had been beat up

19
00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:13,759
Speaker 1: so badly from running into things that they couldn't get

20
00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:16,920
Speaker 1: off the ground anymore. So now the twins had these

21
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,399
Speaker 1: toys that they loved, but that no longer worked, and I,

22
00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:24,760
Speaker 1: as their parents, set out to figure out is there

23
00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:28,520
Speaker 1: such a thing as a toy helicopter in the thirty

24
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:32,240
Speaker 1: ish dollar range that's actually a good toy that you

25
00:01:32,319 --> 00:01:37,399
Speaker 1: actually can control accurately, fly around accurately, and avoid running

26
00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:40,679
Speaker 1: into things so it lasts more than eight hours. To

27
00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:43,679
Speaker 1: make a long story short, the answer is that, yes,

28
00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:47,800
Speaker 1: there is such a thing as an indoor helicopter in

29
00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:52,400
Speaker 1: the thirty dollar range that little kids can control successfully

30
00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:55,360
Speaker 1: and that will last for weeks or months at a time.

31
00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:59,000
Speaker 1: And I've found out about this both by reading on

32
00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:02,160
Speaker 1: the internet and by talking to friends. It turns out

33
00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:04,960
Speaker 1: the model number is the S one oh seven G,

34
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:08,359
Speaker 1: which you can find all over the internet for as

35
00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:11,400
Speaker 1: little as twenty two dollars online. Usually it's more like

36
00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:13,960
Speaker 1: thirty or forty dollars if you find it in a store.

37
00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:18,600
Speaker 1: But the thing that makes these machines so amazing is

38
00:02:18,639 --> 00:02:22,560
Speaker 1: that they're incredibly stable in flight, and they have very

39
00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:26,680
Speaker 1: very precise steering. The twins can fly them without crashing

40
00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:30,359
Speaker 1: them at all, and they're better constructed. They have metal

41
00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:33,200
Speaker 1: bodies and metal parts in all the places that are

42
00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:36,720
Speaker 1: likely to fail so there have been no issues with

43
00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:40,079
Speaker 1: the Twins flying these things around. It's a good lesson

44
00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:44,280
Speaker 1: in how product A and product be, even though they

45
00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:46,880
Speaker 1: do the same kind of thing in the same kind

46
00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:50,919
Speaker 1: of price range, can perform completely differently. In this case,

47
00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:54,399
Speaker 1: the S one oh seven is an order of magnitude

48
00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:58,400
Speaker 1: better than the little helicopters that they replaced, So what's

49
00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:01,960
Speaker 1: the difference, Like, how can this thing be so much better?

50
00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:05,120
Speaker 1: And then one of the key differences is the fact

51
00:03:05,520 --> 00:03:09,160
Speaker 1: that there's a little accelerometer built into the helicopter and

52
00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:12,600
Speaker 1: a little computer that can listen to that accelerometer and

53
00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:16,680
Speaker 1: make it more stable in the air. The other thing

54
00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:20,640
Speaker 1: is that the S one oh seven has a tail rotor,

55
00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:23,160
Speaker 1: where the ones that the Twins originally got did not.

56
00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:27,320
Speaker 1: And this tail rotor is interesting because it's not oriented

57
00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:32,840
Speaker 1: vertically like a normal helicopter. It's oriented horizontally. So these

58
00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:38,480
Speaker 1: are twin rotor helicopters with counter rotating blades. The rotation

59
00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:41,480
Speaker 1: of the blades cancel each other out, so technically you

60
00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:45,680
Speaker 1: don't need a tail rotor to keep the body from spinning.

61
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,400
Speaker 1: But what the horizontal tail rotor does is it lets

62
00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:54,160
Speaker 1: you tip the helicopter forward or backward while it's in flight,

63
00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,400
Speaker 1: and that gives you a way to point it in

64
00:03:57,440 --> 00:04:00,120
Speaker 1: a direction to start going in that direction at a

65
00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:03,480
Speaker 1: good rate of speed, and then on the control stick

66
00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:07,240
Speaker 1: you have the ability to rotate the helicopter body in

67
00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:10,440
Speaker 1: mid air and control which direction you want to go.

68
00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:14,040
Speaker 1: This is nothing like the way real helicopters work that

69
00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:17,160
Speaker 1: we see flying around covering news stories and things like that,

70
00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:21,120
Speaker 1: but it's a very very stable way to have a

71
00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:25,160
Speaker 1: toy helicopter that works really well. Here's another interesting thing

72
00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:28,200
Speaker 1: about these toy helicopters that the Twins got, either the

73
00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:31,440
Speaker 1: original ones they got or the ones that are much

74
00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:36,000
Speaker 1: more stable, these toys would have been absolutely impossible for

75
00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:39,480
Speaker 1: anyone to create when I was a kid, and there

76
00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:43,400
Speaker 1: are at least five reasons why that's so. The first

77
00:04:43,440 --> 00:04:47,440
Speaker 1: reason is because the motors in these helicopters. Each helicopter

78
00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:51,919
Speaker 1: has three motors to that control the two main rotors

79
00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:54,800
Speaker 1: and one that controls the tail rotor. Those motors can

80
00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:58,680
Speaker 1: be so small and so powerful because of the invention

81
00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:02,920
Speaker 1: of neo dimium magnets. These magnets had not been invented

82
00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:05,560
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. The second reason is because

83
00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:08,680
Speaker 1: the battery can be so small and light because it

84
00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:13,120
Speaker 1: uses lithium polymer technology, and that didn't exist when I

85
00:05:13,160 --> 00:05:16,520
Speaker 1: was a kid. The third reason is because the stability

86
00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:21,200
Speaker 1: and flight is made possible by this clever counter rotating

87
00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:27,239
Speaker 1: rotor design with a weighted balancing bar that automatically stabilizes

88
00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:30,279
Speaker 1: the helicopter anytime it tries to tip in one direction

89
00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:35,640
Speaker 1: or the other. That design was invented and patented fairly recently. Then,

90
00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:39,400
Speaker 1: the fourth reason is that the stability is enhanced by

91
00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:44,839
Speaker 1: these little inexpensive onboard accelerometer chips and a little microprocessor,

92
00:05:45,279 --> 00:05:48,120
Speaker 1: and neither of those things existed when I was a kid,

93
00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:51,279
Speaker 1: especially in a tiny form factor like that that could

94
00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:55,040
Speaker 1: have been battery operated. And then, fifth and finally, the

95
00:05:55,120 --> 00:05:58,240
Speaker 1: control for this thing is provided by infrared l e

96
00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:02,040
Speaker 1: ed s and a tiny Infra A receiver inside the helicopter.

97
00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:05,080
Speaker 1: The l E d s didn't exist when I was

98
00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:07,680
Speaker 1: a kid, and the cost of both the sender and

99
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:12,200
Speaker 1: the receiver technology has been driven to near zero because

100
00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:16,000
Speaker 1: it's the same technology used in almost every TV remote control.

101
00:06:16,160 --> 00:06:21,000
Speaker 1: So they've been manufacturing these remote controls in such gigantic

102
00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:23,799
Speaker 1: volumes that the costs have been reduced to practically zero.

103
00:06:24,400 --> 00:06:27,720
Speaker 1: That is a whole lot of new technology coming together

104
00:06:28,279 --> 00:06:33,400
Speaker 1: to make toy helicopters possible in the price range. Who

105
00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:36,560
Speaker 1: knows what toy helicopters will look like in twenty years.

106
00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:41,040
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, does

107
00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:43,280
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot Com and don't forget to

108
00:06:43,360 --> 00:06:45,200
Speaker 1: check out the brain stuff blog on the house stuff

109
00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:47,760
Speaker 1: works dot com home page. You can also follow brain

110
00:06:47,800 --> 00:06:53,160
Speaker 1: stuff on Facebook or Twitter at brain stuff HSW. The

111
00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:55,760
Speaker 1: house Stuff Works I Find app has arrived down at

112
00:06:55,760 --> 00:07:00,120
Speaker 1: it today on iTunes, m