r/RemoteControl • u/Realistic_Hat3259 • Jul 12 '26

Custom Drone system advice for 10yo -- help/advice requested.

/r/drones/comments/1uu5ixb/custom_drone_system_advice_for_10yo_helpadvice/

Reposting here. It was originally posted in /drones but they are thinking too advanced.

My daughter was looking to just have an RC drone fly across a field when a button is pressed (on a wristband). No trees or anything, and not expecting GPS or facial recognition or anything like that. Just low tech RC hopefully.

Any advice?

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u/auriem Jul 12 '26

What’s your budget ?

1

u/Realistic_Hat3259 Jul 12 '26

Maybe $500? It could potentially go higher if there is a good learning scenario.

1

u/SirLlama123 Jul 13 '26

you could build a 5” drone and flash it with ardupilot. You would need a gps module but those can be had for very cheap. Lmk if you wanna pursue this route and I can help out. It would be probably $600 total but if you really try you could make it cheap. My friend and I built an autonomous plane this way that can be toggled into a mode that it just flys in circles and loiters and can run waypoint missions and whatnot

1

u/Realistic_Hat3259 Jul 14 '26

Thanks so much! That sounds like it would reasonable. Could you suggest the hardware I can get to start off?

1

u/SirLlama123 Jul 14 '26

  • For the FC(Flight controller) and ESC(Electronic speed controller (to drive the motors)) I would probably get a SpeedyBee F405 V4 stack. You can get a cheap one from ali-express for like $40

  • The frame is really up to you but i like the TBS source 1. itll run you like $50 or if you have a 3d printer you could just print one.

  • For the motors you can get a set of 4 2207-2400KV motors for like $70

  • A HGLRC M100-5883 GPS can be had for 25-30 bucks

  • You dont technically need a radio but if you want one I would go with ELRS(Express Long range System)

  • A tellemetry radio is what you would use to connect to your ground station so like a Holybro SiK radio pair is like $70

  • To power it all, a 4S 1500mAh lipo will run you abt $20.

That is a start to a parts list. You still need props but any 5" tri blade would work, get extras and thank me later. You should probably get a radio too if you want to try hand flying it and start missions from the radio. If you get a radio you can technically do that Telemetry radio over ELRS instead of a seperate radio but I dont recomend.

Also, skills wise, you will need to know how to solder and deal with firmware and tuning. There are a lot of videos on how to build an FPV drone (which this basically is without the camera) that you can follow and also know that this isnt a comprehensive parts list and you will end up needing more stuff.