when i was a young lad i was fortunate enough to grow up with a grandfather who was a tinkerer and i have many fond memories of strolling past his workbench with various things mechanical and electronic in various states of repair. he taught me the simple lesson that it was possible to take things apart and fix them and occasionally make them better, faster and stronger. this led to my notorious tendency to Take Things Apart and, later, wandering the aisles of radioshack contemplating what i could use to mod my “101 electronics” kit and what i could do if i got my hands on a heathkit HERO.

nowadays there’s a whole maker subculture and make magazine for the young and young at heart who enjoy Making Things which, i imagine, would make my grandfather smile and i’ve been slowly introducing odin to the idea that he can Do. Make. Create.

in that spirit we gave odin a few syma s107 rc helicopters which can be had for cheap on amazon. their cheapness combined with the availability of replacement parts and the ability to easily take them apart has created the conditions necessary for a variety of s107 helicopter mods which i thought would be fun to explore.

but before we could get to modding them, sure enough, we broke the rotors and balance bars on two of them after heavy use and many crashes while learning fly them around the house.

so i ordered some parts and we set about figuring how take them apart and put them together again.

i have to say, it was great fun working together with odin to figure out how to take them apart and hear him say, “dude, no, i think we just need to take out these these screws to fix it.”

of course, he was right, and in short order we were back to flying.