Questions for a middle school program

M

middleschooldrone

New Member
Hello, as my name suggests I'm a middle school teacher and I'm hoping to gather some additional information and opinions.

My school will be starting a flying club in the spring to hopefully help the students gain an appreciation for STEM fields through the use of quadcopters. While I would love to build a quadcopter from scratch with the kids the cost is beyond our budget (and I'm a complete novice). We plan on buying a few micro sized toy quads to have the students learn how to fly.

I've narrowed our search down to the Cheerson CX-10 and the JJRC H8 Mini and am leaning heavily towards the later (mostly due to the removable battery). Which would you choose for an average middle school student who has no experience with quadcopters? Where would you buy these quadcopters? I'm thinking amazon because returns would be easy if we get a bad unit, does banggood offer similar service? Is there a hobby shop website I should look into? Are there any other toy quads I should look into in the under $20 bracket? Would I be able to fly 4+ of these craft at one time? I've read about racing two H8's but haven't seen much more.

We'll be meeting together for around an hour in an empty gym so should have plenty of space to fly and replaceable batteries will keep downtime to a minimum.

Thanks for any help.
 

Hoki

Hoki

Member
You can buy a 250 size kit off ebay for like 80 dollars or less and you'll just need to get a battery and the remove to make it fly. Remotes can get bought for 30 dollars or so for a basic one and I got a 2 pack of batteries off gearbest.com for only 15 dollars for 2200 3s ones. So You can get all the parts needed to make a good one for under 150 dollars, maybe even with a fpv camera if you order all your parts from aliexpress, banggood, gearbest but it'll take up to a month for everything to arrive since it'll come from china but that's how you can get what you need on a budget. Otherwise I think the syma x5 series or x8 series is good for under 100 dollars I think on gearbest you can get the x8w or x8c model for like 80 dollars. Or if you'd like s cheaper and smaller one I think the MJX X400 is good for like 30 dollars on gearbest.com or aliexpress.com
 


Hoki

Hoki

Member
whaaaa hold the phone mister. that ominus is bs! for 80 bucks! come on and it's a small one? You know you can get a syma x8w or x8c for that price and those symas are like Phantom look-a-likes especially if you get the phantom style landing legs for like 5 dollars as well.
 

Hoki

Hoki

Member
I still think it's best to build one especially for a beginner cause then you can set it so it's not so snappy and sensitive when you control the sticks and makes it a lot less likely to crash and get away from you. but it's not that hard to control a toy one you just have to be mindful of making small motions with your thumbs or fingers but I rather just have my max tilt set low and not have to think about it and just fly, I don't care if it's slower, at 20 degree max tilt it still seems very fast to me.
 





John Doecliff

John Doecliff

Member
Stay with the light weight quads that are for indoor use. It should have prop guards on it and a removable battery so you can just switch it out with a fresh one and keep flying.. the problem is with the remote control. It's likely that if you bought 2 or 3 (or more) that they would all use the Same frequency and would interference with each other. See if there's an RC club in your area or a hobby store that could also help. They may even help sponsor your club. This is a really great idea an your students will benefit.
 

John Doecliff

John Doecliff

Member
It's possible that you could buy 3 different brands of quads and they would each use a different frequency an not interfere with each other. I wish I knew for sure but I don't want to steer you in the wrong direction. That's why I would run it by a hobby store in your area, they may have a better idea because they likely have 3 or 4 different brands in store that you could try. Getting them from Amazon is a Good idea. Buying at a discount from the Chinese suppliers is always a crap shoot although it's probably the best price.
 

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