Star Wars fanboy builds RC speeder bike quadcopter

Google engineer modifies a retro toy to bring his favourite scene from Return of the Jedi to life

An engineer has taken his love for Star Wars to the next level by building a remote control Imperial speeder bike quadcopter.

We at T3 love things out of the ordinary, and this undoubtedly qualifies. Engineer and Star Wars fan Adam Woodworth has built a custom quadcopter out of a Hasbro Imperial speeder bike toy.

The Google engineer and MIT graduate has been into radio control vehicles since he was a kid and has always had a thing for Star Wars.

When looking for a new project to start, he thought why not combine his two passions and bring his favourite scene (the Endor chase scene) from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi to life.

Writing for Makezine.com, Woodworth says he got the 1999 Hasbro 12-inch Imperial Speeder bike toy off eBay and then used CAD to design a layout of four 7-inch rotors driven by 880kv 28mm motors, which spun 3-bladed propellers running on a 14.4v 2200mAh Lipo

He then fitted 10mm carbon tubes for booms, stick mount-stylemotormounts, angled autopilot and rotors, and control provided by a 3DRobotics PixHawk.

To shed some of the weight it was carrying, Woodworth even made a lighter stormtrooper out of pipe cleaners, old Nerfdarts, and 6mmcarbon tuberuns.

He also fitted the stormtrooper's helmet with a first-person video camera mounted to a Styrofoam ball, so he could see what it was like from the toy's point of view.

The result is awesome. We want one and you certainly will too. Check out the video below and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Nathan George

Nathan George is a freelance journalist who has contributed to T3.com in the fields of gaming, social media, streaming services, autonomous vehicles, phones, virtual reality headsets, wireless speakers and future tech. He studied journalism at the University of the West of England and is a holder of the Bronze and Silver The Duke of Edinburgh Award.