Boy turns pet dead rat into drone quadcopter

The 14-year-old Pepijn Bruins from Ede was devastated when he heard from the vet that his beloved pet rat, Ratjetoe, had cancer and needed to be put to sleep. With a little inspiration, the teenager knew how he wanted Ratjetoe to be remembered. He turned him into a 'Ratcopter', the Algemeen Dagblad reports. Pepijn wanted to do something special to keep Ratjetoe in his life. Having seen the 'Orvillecopter', in which a dead cat was engineered into a flying object by attaching propellers to its paws, he decided he wanted to do the same with his rat. After getting Ratjetoe stuffed, he was fitted out with two propellers on his front paws and one at his rear. "It's really Ratjetoe", Pepijn says proudly. Before flying the Ratcopter himself, Pepijn's father made him practice with a toy helicopter. "Flying Ratjetoe is not for beginners", says Arjen Beltman who engineered the Ratcopter. Beltman worked together with artist Bart Jansen to construct the Orvillecopter several years ago. Despite outrage from animal rights organizations, the pair didn't stop with a cat. An 'OstrichCopter and a 'Sharkjet' followed. According to Pepijn, Ratjetoe's new life is his dream realized. "There are classmates who find it creepy, but most of them think it's cool."