A unique document of the Costa Concordia tragedy taken from a TBS Discovery by Team Black Sheep. To help not forgetting.
Category Archives: Video
Amazing very long range FPV with mystery quadcopter in thailand
This are probably the most impressive FPV videos I have seen so far. The pilot skills are outstanding, and so is the video link range. The poster of the videos on youtube did not release the quadcopter specs and apparently is not answering questions right now. From another video, the quadcopter could be an F450 with a very very big battery on in it. Will follow the channel to see if more details are released.
Video 1: Koh Samui Sunset
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7dpQwggsLI
Video 2: Thailand, Koh Samui, Lamai, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4O_fP-8Krs
Halloween drone – Ghost quad – Best quadcopter decoration ever
Alton Porter had a great idea for the best use of his personal drone during halloween.
Can’t miss this movie, here you go:
Hobbyking’s Integrated PCB Micro Quad PNP with kk2.0 flight controller setup (success!)
As a follow up to the previous post on
Advances in setting up Hobbyking’s Integrated PCB Micro Quad PNP with kk2.0 flight controller
Great news: propellers from hobbyking arrived today, so I was able to complete the setup. Trimming correctly was a bit tricky, but I think I got quite right. It is a bit unstable on take off but then catches up quickly as it gains some height.
The default landing gear seem to be expressly designed to have the quad tilt on landing and arms crash on the floor, as it provides a very narrow base. Hence the ping pong balls mod.
Here you go:
Edit: Moved the ping pong balls more toward the center, as right under the motors is not a good place to avoid stress to the “weak spot”. Also added a mobius camera to check for video stability and as a first step toward an FPV setup. A soft sponge ball was zip tied to each arm, and covered with tape for additional arms protection.
Team Black Sheep videos
Team Black Sheep earned a reputation for their amazing videos in urban environments in cities all over the world, mostly taken either with their TBS Discovery FPV quadcopter:
or with their wing called “the caipirinha”:
I found a video on Venice taken with the Discovery that is just outstanding, thought I would share it here. Here you go:
And a couple more…
This is a more recent one in Thailand, taken with the caipirinha:
Enjoy!
Athletic flying machines
Amazing presentation by Raffaello D’Andrea, Professor of Dynamics Systems and Control at the Zurich ETH. Prof. D’andrea demonstrates the amazing skills that can be conferred to quadcopters by developing and applying the correct mathematical algorithms.
Here’s the video:
Raffaello D’andrea interviewed by Rolf Dobelli, talks about some of his ongoing projects:
Call your personal drone by phone
Call your drone by phone wherever you are with the SkyCall app and then let him guide you to destination.
Skycall is a project developed in the Senseable City Lab of the MIT.
Read the story and watch the video:
Deer Trail is currently issuing unofficial licenses to shoot drones (25$ each)
Deer Trail, a small city in Colorado, has been releasing licenses to shoot surveillance drones, at 25$ each. The vote on releasing the licenses was actually delayed, maybe also because the FAA warned that shooting UAVs is a crime.
The licenses release looks more as a political/promotional move at the moment, as it appears that as of today no drone was seen flying over Deer Trail.
Here is a video that features the story:
Here are a couple of related files:
Source: http://www.deertrailcolorado.com/
Source: http://www.droneshooters.com/
UAV and law enforcement
Found this video that features a long interview to Prof. Alan Frazier on the subject of drone usage in law enforcement, in which he also answers questions from the public.
Prof. Frazier has a very particular curriculum, as he is both a Professor at the North Dakota University, Department of Aviation and Deputy Sheriff in the Grand Forks County Sheriff’s Department (link). This puts him in a strong position to deeply understand the technical and legal background of quadcopters, multirotors and more in general UAV usage, and to apply this knowledge in the field, as a law enforcement officer. For these reasons it is of particular interest to hear his views on the subject of UAV and law enforcement. Here’s the video:
For some quick examples of how drones were used recently by Prof. Frazier in the field, see this article
Jordi Muñoz talks about 3D Robotics and the expansion of the private drones business
Jordi Muñoz talks about how he started the 3D Robotics personal drones business.