While my original Surveillance Drone is fairly popular, and I quite like it myself, with its rotating camera and fold-down landing gear, it is also harder to construct. For the Arctic Danger set I did with Cotswold in 2021, I designed a new drone, one that would fit inside a metal backpack, and be solid-state. No moving parts.

That was fairly successful, and we used a black and red version in the Spy Island: Aerial Assault Superset.

When in 2023 we decided to do a little focusing on RACCS, I finally got around to making a version that had legs, to make the RACCS more versatile. No longer would you have to attach it to an ATV or the Training Tower. Now you could make it a table using attachable legs:

So along with this, I thought it would be a very good idea to make a charging/launching station for this new drone, a bit like the charging/launching station I made for the original drone, which I originally used in the Save the Endangered Pygmy Rhino set, and revised last year for the Cotswold set of the same name.

So I made a new base, designed to snap to the RACCS platform. This base would have fold-out solar panels to charge an internal battery, which could then, in turn, charge the drone when it was docked.

I’m quite happy with how this turned out. The solar panels are printed squares on a shimmering blue paper, with a CRICUT-scoring to make the panels look real.

The two solar panels fold out flat. Each is offset vertically, so when you fold them up, they fit into a central area with a third solar panel. They fold nice and flat.

Here, you see the drone clips onto the base via two red clips. These snap nicely into place, and you can pull the drone off easily. The set comes with a yellow Wrist Controller.

Here you see the drone base with its solar panels out:

And again, on a RACCS Platform, ready to deploy!