Michigan Stadium (and Ann Arbor) via Quad Rotor

Submitted by BlueBarron on

Recently I've developed a new favorite hobby that I would like to share with all of you. I recently acquired a Blade 350 QX Quad Rotor and a Hero 3+ GoPro. For those of you who don't know, a quad rotor is like a helicopter but with four propellers instead of one:


Last week, I took it to the Big House for some flying. I was able to snap this angle:

You can watch the whole video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgOsYG9ccJY&feature=youtu.be

(sorry, don't know how to imbed)

Here's some other stuff that I've flown around on campus:

 

 

So if you're ever walking around campus or the Arb, and you see someone flying a quad rotor around, feel free to stop by and say hi! I'm happy to chat about it and answer questions.

BlueBarron

March 1st, 2014 at 6:04 PM ^

Around the stadium? No, I don't think I'd even try. It would almost surely raise some eyebrows from security. Maybe I could fly out of Elbel field during a game? Or near the high school/golf course? I try to avoid flying over crowds, parking lots, and roads, just in case something were to go wrong (though I've gotten pretty comfortable with the system and confident with the programming). There's a lot of self-stabilizing and safety software implemented in it.

BlueBarron

March 1st, 2014 at 6:08 PM ^

The quad rotor here is about $400, the GoPro is the latest top-of-the-line one which runs for about $300 (though there are cheaper alternatives, it's designed to fly with all GoPros).

One tricky thing with this is that it uses a satellite receiver to self-stabilize in flight. But GoPros produce a lot of EMI noise and can sometimes cause it to lose signal with the satellite while flying (which == bad). So I keep my GoPro wrapped in aluminum foil and it works great whenever I fly.

BlueBarron

March 2nd, 2014 at 1:51 PM ^

These are all things I have not tested yet. There's a very big field near my house that I fly in sometimes when I want to test something. Thanks for reminding me to do a distance test!

BlueBarron

March 1st, 2014 at 8:58 PM ^

With the GoPro weight added, it will fly for about 10 minutes. When I first got it, I crashed it quite a bit before I really got a handle for how to use the sattelite stabilization (hint, it's automatic but you have to wait for it to connect). The first picture of the quad rotor is mine and you'll notice one of the arms taped up.

When I frst flew it on its maiden flight, I flew it in safe mode (a flight mode where the control scheme is extremely basic for people who've never done RC flying before). What I didn't know is that safe mode has a 16-foot protection circle around the pilot, so when I ran up to it as it was drifting towards the house, it flew away from me... Into the house. Merry Christmas. Thankfully, useful engineering tools such as duck tape and polysterene plastic glue exist and I was able to fix it. For the most part though, I've flown it into some bushes a couple times and had some bouncy landings and its survived. Just always have some sort of intuition for what your battery life is.

MGoGrendel

March 1st, 2014 at 8:46 PM ^

JK. Pretty cool that drone like technology can be used for interesting and harmless activities like this. Not sure how long we'll keep this freedom when lunatics start mis-using it.



Thanks for sharing the pics!

UAUM

March 1st, 2014 at 11:12 PM ^

Totally agree with others that this is the type of innovative content that makes the site better than the rest. Leaders and Best, yo!

MikeCohodes

March 2nd, 2014 at 3:23 PM ^

You should do this to your quad. Also, do you do r/c planes as well? There's kits you can buy (or just build your own) of flying snoopy's doghouses. Flyingthingz.com has the kit for $150.

But in the meantime, great photos, these are awesome and definitely keep doing more! Thanks for posting them!