Elektor Lab Talk #47: Max Imagination on Drones, Robots, and Outdoor Electronics

Lab Talk #47 brings practical maker engineering to the foreground on Thursday, June 18, 2026, at 16:00 CEST (10:00 AM EDT / 14:00 UTC). Max Imagination is known to Elektor readers through his Elektor Labs projects, where drones, RC vehicles, 3D-printed mechanisms, ESP32 boards, Arduino projects, and workshop problem-solving tend to share the same bench space. You can register for the live stream and join the discussion live.

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It’s a €25 show, brought to you free by Elektor Academy Pro!

Max Imagination Lab Talk: Real Builds, Real Constraints

Brian Tristam Williams and Jens Nickel will speak with Max about how maker projects actually come together: choosing parts, printing usable mechanical structures, testing ideas, fixing the things that fail, and keeping a project understandable enough that someone else can build it too.

Max’s work is a good fit for this format because it sits at the point where electronics, mechanics, firmware, batteries, motors, radio links, and patience all collide. His step-by-step tutorials and project files cover hands-on builds such as RC cars, drones, submarines, robots, and ESP32- or Arduino-based electronics. That is exactly the sort of practical engineering that looks simple only after someone else has already made all the mistakes!

Drones, Robots, 3D Printing, and Outdoor Electronics

The conversation will focus on drones, robotics, RC builds, 3D printing, ESP32 and Arduino projects, and outdoor electronics. Expect discussion around workshop decisions that matter: when to design a custom printed part, when to use an off-the-shelf module, how to avoid over-engineering, how to make a prototype robust enough to survive the real world, and how to keep a project buildable for readers and viewers who do not have an industrial lab hidden behind the curtain.

The “outdoor electronics” angle is especially useful for makers. A project that works on a bench may behave very differently when vibration, sunlight, dust, uneven surfaces, battery sag, RF range, and crashes enter the story. Drones and RC vehicles are good teachers here, partly because they give immediate feedback and partly because gravity is not interested in your firmware excuses.

Giveaway

Viewers will also have a chance to win an Elektor Mini-Wheelie Self-Balancing Robot during the live stream. The Mini-Wheelie is based on an ESP32-S3 and is programmable in the Arduino environment, making it a neat match for a session about robotics, sensing, control, wireless features, and hands-on experimentation.

The Max Imagination Lab Talk will also include the usual look at what is happening around Elektor Labs, recent favorites from Elektor Magazine, and a few pointers toward what is coming next. If you are into building things that move, balance, fly, print, break, and eventually work, this one should be comfortably in your lane.