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Lily – Drone camera

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Lily – Drone camera

#141

Post by larrys »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #53
josefresco wrote: post #19

I wonder how this handles obstacles. The trails we ride are not wide open ski slopes, or rivers, often times they are tight/wooded trails. Would like to see how it handles "close following". Lastly, the part in the video where the guy just tosses it into the river was definitely mind-blowing.

The biggest showstopper for me on this is the hugely disappointing top speed (40 km/h). I'm an alpine skier (ex-racer) and the only times I go that slow is on transport stages. This thing literally wouldn't be able to keep up with Usain Bolt running the 100m. It needs at least twice the top speed.

Not to mention that the speed (+-) is variable by the wind speed.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#142

Post by nine_k »

bglazer wrote: post #131

This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…

I want 99.9999% reliability and strong safety guarantees as a feature of cars, bikes, and can openers, too.

Unfortunately, currently we probably make do with a few less nines on all these items.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#143

Post by Zombieball »

naryad wrote: post #61

Related drone camera projects on kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?term=camera+dr...

Some of these projects are crazy. They could be straight out of the South Park episode "Go Fund Yourself".

These campaigns are essentially people just asking you to buy them a drone:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1430324424/drone-scouti...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1802912897/drone-build-...

I wasn't aware campaigns of these sorts actually existed. Probably because I have always stuck to the front page of kickstarter.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#144

Post by themodelplumber »

rubicon33 wrote: post #138
bglazer wrote: post #131

This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…

This is a big, big worry of mine. I'm considering doing commercial work with drones, and the major thing holding me back is the risk of injuring others with these things. The DJI Phantom, and Inspire, could kill someone if they fell from high enough. And I can tell you from personal experience, the software is simply not even CLOSE to bug-free enough for me to be worry free. The more I think about it, the more I thin…

Seems like a good place to put Extreme Drone Crashes - Compilation 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9rnTk6FBzs

hehe

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#145

Post by nine_k »

rubicon33 wrote: post #138
bglazer wrote: post #131

This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…

This is a big, big worry of mine. I'm considering doing commercial work with drones, and the major thing holding me back is the risk of injuring others with these things. The DJI Phantom, and Inspire, could kill someone if they fell from high enough. And I can tell you from personal experience, the software is simply not even CLOSE to bug-free enough for me to be worry free. The more I think about it, the more I thin…

I wonder if a heavier-than-air airship design would be safer. A balloon with helium or even hydrogen would let such a device fall slowly with engines off, and motors would let it fly up and maneuver around swiftly enough.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#147

Post by basseq »

The FAA doesn't appear to have any guidance on automated flying: e.g., it doesn't say anything (at least in a 1m search) about a human pilot. (I was surprised by this.)

So long as you stay within recreational use guidelines (e.g., don't upload videos to YouTube), you should be fine.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#148

Post by dharma1 »

There are a lot of drones that can do pretty much all of these things already, or you can build your own using an open source flight controller like ardupilot.

The main job here (which they have done well) is turning it into a mass consumer product, easy to use package. DJI has done a pretty good job for prosumers on it but this is another notch up.

Like the waterproofing!

Video suggests a higher level of autonomy than I think they have right now (obstacle avoidance, automatic landing on your hand) but a year might be enough to cram it in there.

I think we will see many more consumer drones like this.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#149

Post by stinos »

bglazer wrote: post #131

This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…

One motor suddenly failed

Maybe drones need to start to incorporate parachutes to slow down the fall in case of problems like these, or maybe even airbags to ease the crash. Not that it would make it 99.9999% reliable, but it should be better than nothing. And also won't completely thrash your drone when it crashes.

edit seems nine_k already commented with a similar idea

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