Who doesn’t remember making paper airplanes as a kid? Most people have made at least one. And when it comes to paper airplanes, designs are only limited by your imagination. Those simple paper airplanes can now be upgraded and powered in line with today’s technology. Picture this. You can potentially buy a small device, which runs around the length of an average paper airplane. At the front, there is a battery and a bluetooth module. At the rear, there is a propeller and a rudder to steer with. Connecting the two parts is a narrow but sturdy stick. This device, known as the PowerUp, is being funded on Kickstarter and is the creation of Shai Goiten. It won the Popular Science Best of New York Toy Fair 2013 award.
You need to create a paper airplane. Once that’s done, you clip the device onto the airplane. There are clips for this particular purpose. When that is done, you connect to the Bluetooth module from your smartphone or tablet. At present, there is an app for the iPad Mini and for the iPhone 4S and newer iPhones. The app comes with a throttle for controlling the amount of thrust put out by the propeller. You steer the paper airplane by tilting your phone or tablet to the left or right. Basically, you can control and fly your paper airplane from your phone or tablet. The PowerUp device allows for around a 10 minute flight on a single charge. The device charges using a micro USB cable. The airplane can be controlled from as far away as 180 feet or 55 meters. A $30 pledge on Kickstarter is enough to get you one of the devices, plus a spare propeller. If you love paper airplanes and you enjoy coming up with different shapes and designs for these planes, you may love the idea of being able to make these fly for real. The module is fairly sturdy, so it should be able to survive bumps and crashes, and give you many hours of enjoyment.