Australian Review: Rolling Spider MiniDrone – Airborne Chaos

The Rolling Spider is the second of Parrot's two new recently released MiniDrones. While it's companion, the Jumping Sumo, is a whole new style of drone, the Rolling Spider is a smaller, more affordable take of the flying drones that Parrot has come to be known for.

By Alex Choros

The Rolling Spider is the second of Parrot's two new recently released MiniDrones. While it's companion, the Jumping Sumo, is a whole new style of drone, the Rolling Spider is a smaller, more affordable take of the flying drones that Parrot has come to be known for.

Design
Aesthetically, the Rolling Spider is very similar to Parrot's other drones, but with a little bit more personality. Parrot have made uses of a similar four propeller body, but eschewed dark colour schemes for a choice of bright red or blue. But despite sharing more than a few characteristics with Parrot's flagship drones, the Rolling Spider has a few unique features of its own. The biggest addition to the frisky flyer is a set of optional wheels that give the drone the ability roll around on either the floor or ceiling.

Unsurprisingly, the Rolling Spider weighs nothing at all, but he plastic body feels quite solid. This is not the case with the wheels, axel and propellers. Both wheels snapped off in crashing landings in my first day with the drone. The first one broke after a fall from about three metres, whereas the second one broke after a metre drop (when we were seeing if we could fix the first one). Thankfully, replacements parts can be purchased for all of the Rolling Spider's components, and I'd advise picking some up from the get go.

The Rolling Spider has a removable battery that charges via a micro USB port on the back of the robot. Unfortunately there's no external battery charger, meaning batteries can't be hot swapped.