Haven't fully soldered it together yet so I hope I'm not forgetting something important, but all the parts have arrived, and I've successfully rough-fitted everything together. The Flywoo Goku board supposedly runs both Betaflight or ArduPilot on a whoop form factor. Note also that the biggest expense are one-time items that can be reused across multiple drones: the radio controller, FPV goggles, and battery charger are $200 together. The BOM for a single drone is about $150 these days, so if you're say putting together multiple ones for multiple family members, it's pretty cheap.
Instead of the analogue eachine boxgoggle, you could go full digital for $199.99 with the Walksnail Avatar HD Goggles L.
Of course you will also have to pay extra for the HD camera system, and the system might be slightly on the heavy side for tinywhoops, but the upgrade to digital image is absolutely worth the price. And you might be able to get a bundle discount if you buy the goggles with a camera system.
As a disclaimer, I should add that I have 0 experience with the Walksnail system, but I do fly the other two HD systems on the market.
From my experience, starting with an analogue system was, in hindsight, a waste of money. And a disappointment as the image quality of the low cost analogue systems was particularly poor.
As a second tip, have your kids fly on the computer first, using the radiomaster pocket as a controller. That will help decrease your repair efforts due to unavoidable beginners crashes.
I bought for Black Friday sales so there's already some discount included, but the FC is also more expensive than it needs to be because I wanted something compatible with both ArduPilot and Betaflight, and the motors are more expensive than they need to be because my kids had color preferences. I think you can easily get a FPV whoop BOM well under $100.
- Flywoo Goku F405 HD 1-2S 12A ELRS AIO V2 flight controller, $64, flywoo.net
- Radiomaster Pocket radio controller, $65, radiomasterrc.com
- EAchine EV800D VR goggles, $109.81, banggood.com
- Meteor 75 frame, $5, tinywhoop.com
- 4x 40mm props, $2.25, tinywhoop.com
- BetaFPV canopy, $5, tinywhoop.com
- TinyWhoop Pinch Premium FPV camera, $20, tinywhoop.com
- 4x 702 26,000kV brushless motors, $40, tinywhoop.com
- 4x BetaFPV BT2.0 550mAH lipo battery, $31, amazon.com
- BetaFPV 1S lipo charger board, $28, amazon.com
Haven't fully soldered it together yet so I hope I'm not forgetting something important, but all the parts have arrived, and I've successfully rough-fitted everything together. The Flywoo Goku board supposedly runs both Betaflight or ArduPilot on a whoop form factor. Note also that the biggest expense are one-time items that can be reused across multiple drones: the radio controller, FPV goggles, and battery charger are $200 together. The BOM for a single drone is about $150 these days, so if you're say putting together multiple ones for multiple family members, it's pretty cheap.