Make a Flying Lego Quadcopter - Here's a Tutorial

Want to make your Lego fly? You've come to the right place. 

I think it's safe to assume that many of us in the Flite Test community loves Lego. It's fantastic. If you watched last week's Flite Test video on the Arctic Air Transport conversion, you might be inspired to go at creating your own flying Lego quadcopter. No problem, we've got you covered with this in-depth guide.

The purpose of this article is to provide a little more context and help to get your Lego creation up in the air, such as giving you a complete list of what you'll need and links to other Flite Test resources. With that being said, here's the video again to kick things off to a... flying start. No regrets for that rather obvious pun.

Build Your Own!

Here's all the electronics gear you'll need to build your own flying lego Artic Air Transport, or any other flying Lego kit for that matter.  

Flight controller + ESC Stack: https://goo.gl/VmEcu3

Motors: https://goo.gl/27M6jv

Battery: https://goo.gl/MzxMjp

Props: https://goo.gl/8vT1o6

Reciever: https://goo.gl/3K3p1Q

Recommended Transmitter: 

https://goo.gl/25xUq3

Gremlin Micro FPV Quad: https://goo.gl/6mPNqD

The Lego Kit

For this build, we used this specific Lego kit, the Arctic Air Transport 60193. It's a great kit and can provide you with enough space on the inside for all your electronic goodness. 

Process 

The first thing to do is check prop clearance. We used 5" props as is standard on a large genre of race/freestyle quads. Depending on what Lego model you're intending to make fly, you can change the size. Here are all the props we currently stock on our store: https://store.flitetest.com/rc-fpv-drone-racing-props/c10167

As Alex said in the video, the central component to the build is the quad's 'brain'. This is a microcontroller, but it's also a unit combined with speed controllers and power distribution. Effectively, this means that this board is the heart of the quad. 

Underneath, you can see the power distribution board and in-built ESCs. This is certainly convenient and saves a lot of space. You can order this control board and ESC stack for your own builds here:  https://goo.gl/VmEcu3

Next, we'll fix our attention on the motors, the other major component of the build. You can order the same motors that Alex used on his quad from the Flite Test Store with this link:  https://goo.gl/27M6jv

The main engineering challenge of the Lego Arctic Transport build was to maintain structural integrity around the motor mounts. In short, we needed to make sure that the motors wouldn't rip off from the base. Alex came up with quite a clean solution which solved the problem and still looked great. 

To attach the motors to the Lego elements, you'll need to drill through the plastic Lego plate to bolt the motor base down. This can be done using the standard screws that come with the motor. 

The bricks beneath the plate will also need modifying to allow the heads of the screws to lye flush. Taking a rotary tool or hand file to the brick should get this done in just a few minutes.

Tah dah!  Building the motor mounts in this way will give you some flexibility when it comes to rebuilding, experimenting and trying different airframes in the future. However, you probably will want to create a slightly more permanent solution if you want to fly with confidence that the friction fit of the Lego won't fail in mid-air! 

"We're going to use a little bit of Kragle here". When Alex talks of Kragle, what we're actually using is CA glue used for model airplanes and other DIY hobbies. You can view all of these essential building supplies on the Flite Test Store. We decided to add this glue to just a few strategic locations on the arms. This effectively makes a large, single 'motor mount brick' that has more gripping power on the wing and fuselage. 

This turned out to be a neat solution. Some of the bricks around the roof of the fuselage were relocated to allow the wires to pass through. Alex was pleased with this as it looks pretty clean and remains functional should the electronics need to be removed at a later date.

CG is always an important consideration when building an aircraft of any description. Balance is critical to success. You can read about this in detail in our new Flite Test Book on the Store and worldwide Amazon sitesif you wish. Succinctly here, Alex needed to put the battery up in the nose to counteract the weight of the tail. The CG on a quad should be at the center of the motors. 

The 1000mAh battery on this model can be accessed by removing the nose. 

With that, the main build component of the Lego Arctic Air Transport R/C conversion is done. If you've been following along, all you will need to do now is the pre-flight programming and configuration setup. 

To help you programme your quad, we have several videos and articles on the subject of configuring your flight controller and ESCs. Here is one that covers a similar quad to this Arctic Transport(electronically speaking). Always remove your props when setting up your quad. 

Once you've got your newly built R/C Lego aircraft all setup, the only thing left to do is go out for a test flight. Slap on those props and see how it flies. Alex's flew great straight off the bat, but it's not always this easy. Here's a video on building tuning your quad, just in case you need a little help with your gains and that sort of thing. 

If you build your own flying Lego model, be sure to show us on the FT Forum, writing an article about it on flitetest.com or by posting photos on the Flite Test Fans Facebook Group. 

We can't wait to see what you come up with! 

Other Crazy Projects

Fortnite Plane

Giant Flying Tank

Flying Box Fan Drone

Article by James Whomsley

Editor of FliteTest.com

Contact: james@flitetest.com

YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/projectairaviation