New device turns your paper plane into a drone

Clip-on technology allows you to control a paper plane with your smart phone.

Image: The Wall Street Journal & PowerUp 3.0

Thanks to a new device, you can now create a controllable drone in less than one minute. But it doesn’t stop them from nose-diving, unfortunately.

The Kickstarter-funded PowerUp 3.0 is a lightweight guidance and propulsion system power by a tiny battery. All you need to do to use it is fold your own aircraft, clip it on and connect it to your smartphone using bluetooth.

Then you simply throw the paper plane, and if it takes to the skies you can control its flight from your phone, as Jack Nicas reports for The Wall Street Journal.

As anyone who’s played with paper planes know, that’s a big if. The Guinness World Record for flying a paper plane is currently 27.9 seconds, and, let's be fair, most made at home tend to crash within seconds.

But a YouTube user has posted videos of himself flying his PowerUp paper plane for several minutes, showing it's possible. It all depends on your ability to fold a aerodynamically sound aircraft, and that's part of the fun.

Of course, these drones aren’t as impressive or useful as the ones that could one day deliver packages or beam high-speed internet for Google and Facebook, but they’re pretty cool to play around with. And they’re only US$50.

But minidrones such as this one are still stirring up some debate about what should be allowed in our air space, so enjoy playing while you can.