Remember Paper Airplanes? Now You Can Fly Them Via Remote Control
There’s something satisfying about folding a piece of paper and throwing it at someone’s head. Now, a new gizmo ensures that you’ll never miss your friend’s noggin again.
Enter PowerUp 3.0, a smartphone-controlled paper plane that propels whatever creation you attach it to through the air at eight yards a second. The long, thin attachment clips onto your paper plane as if it were its spine, shooting it through the air with a rubber rudder that’s powered by a lithium battery. All the while, a chip that’s installed at the nose of this contraption controls the flying object’s movement via an iPhone app.
Yes — it’s a remote-controlled paper plane.
The PowerUp 3.0 takes about 15 minutes to charge and lasts about 10 minutes in the air (which I imagine must feel very short, considering how fun it seems to fly one). You can also buy cutesy sheets of paper (below), if you want to zip around as a spaceship or Leonardo da Vinci invention.
Though it’s gained a lot of hype on tech blogs since its debut in November, it was gratifying to actually play with the PowerUp 3.0 in person at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Seeing the rudder twitch according to the angle of the iPhone makes you feel incredibly powerful.
It’ll go for $50 a pop in mainstream markets this June, as it’s already met its goal on Kickstarter. But if you back it there now, you can pay $40 and get your hands on one sooner. To see it live in action, check out the video below.
