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Lily – Drone camera

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Lily – Drone camera

#451

Post by DarkUranium »

outworlder wrote: post #188
Zombieball wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see multiple comments saying that the blades are harmless, but a quick search through google photos seems to imply otherwise to me. Not to mention the force of this thing dropping on your head after it clips a nearby branch, or has a system failure. I suppose the answer is that the owner needs to be responsible with its usage. The example footage seemed fairly reasonable use-cases (no bystanders).

'harmless' drone blades are the exception, if they even exist. Note that drones designed to operate indoors have some form of protection for the blades (Parrot drone, for instance). In addition, 'cheap' blades have sharp edges due to the manufacturing process. Some drone owners recommend sanding them to get rid of those, to minimize injuries.

I could think of a pretty much harmless blade design that MIGHT work (soft blades), but they'd be woefully inefficient AND they would only work for those super-ultra-light micro/nano drones.

Anything else is not harmless. Even a tiny quadcopter can easily cut your skin, because the plastic is hard and sharp. Think of it as one of those plastic picnic knives, except not that sharp --- BUT rotating very, very fast.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#452

Post by DarkUranium »

moe wrote: post #358

I'm a bit worried about that "throwing start". What happens when the battery is low or when I give it a tad too much spin? "Whoops, did I just lob my $500 gadget into solid concrete?" Well, I suppose it probably has safer take-off modes, too. Can't wait until they shrink it down to tennis ball size.

There exist plenty of tiny camera drones, except those aren't autonomous. An advantage is that crashes are less prone to damage (less mass => less momentum and kinetic energy), and if they do get damaged, repairs are [typically] far cheaper.

I don't know about battery life, though, and that might be a large disadvantage of those. Also, fitting a GPS unit into one might be tricky.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#453

Post by srdev »

flexie wrote: post #117
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.

I see it the other way around. This could help humans handle obstacles, at least if it could launch itself automatically and when it's a bit smaller so that it's really easy to carry around. African American males could carry it. Then, when police was nearby it could launch itself. Maybe it would be triggered by the sound of sirens or if there is a website that tracks police cars, maybe it could launch every time the…

Police do not react well to being filmed. What will likely happen is that your drone will be confiscated as "evidence" or destroyed. Its not as if cell phones do not exist to fill the same role here.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#454

Post by dheera »

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'd agree with you in that drones are pretty dangerous in cities. But for the case of filming extreme sports, like bike races or skiing, the sport is likely inherently MUCH more dangerous than whatever could happen because of the drone, especially if the drone isn't directly above the athletes. Your bike/skiis/etc. aren't anywhere close to 99.9999% safe.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#455

Post by wyager »

noja wrote: post #426
cpks wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a gun. You can still (barely) buy model rockets. You can buy glass windows (which shatter into thousands of sharp pieces if broken). I want proper insurance, liability, etc. when things fail, and good risk management. I don't want stupid safety.

> You can buy a gun. In the US maybe, I can't. > You can still (barely) buy model rockets. In the US maybe, I can't. > You can buy glass windows (which shatter into thousands of sharp pieces if broken). In the US maybe. Safety glass is really not very dangerous, and it's standard.

Can you buy cars in your country? I'm reasonably confident that cars cause more accidental deaths than the three of those combined.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#456

Post by CodeSheikh »

oaktowner wrote: post #301
CodeSheikh wrote: post #252

Correction Lily - Quadcopter camera It is annoying that everyone started calling Quadcopter a "drone", which is a very generic term. Flippin non-tech marketing peeps. -_-

I don't think that's a correction. You are being more specific, but Lily is definitely "an unmanned aircraft or ship that can navigate autonomously"...which is what a drone is[1]. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/drone

Since you have referenced dictionary.com, a very authentic source for tech terminology, I would like to argue why a plane is not called "vessel" in everyday usage?! http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vessel

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#457

Post by organsnyder »

Extremely well done on the marketing. I watched the video with my 2- and 2-year-old boys. After we watched it a few times (we all wanted to watch it again and again), the 4yo was talking about the features of the drone ("It has a camera!" "It lands on your hand!" "It's waterproof!"), while the 2yo kept repeating "Want one!" "Want one!" (which I don't think I was saying out loud myself).

I wouldn't preorder one at this stage (even if I had a spare $500 lying around), but this is one of the coolest gadgets I've seen in a while, and the marketing is top-notch.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#458

Post by oneiric »

It seems like the propellers get close to each other. Usually quadcopter propellers are spaced out much more than this to reduce vibrations. Does anyone know if they do something special?

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#459

Post by Istof »

robotresearcher wrote: post #316
Istof wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quadcopters can also be saved if only one motor fails using only the 3 other motors and an algo: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/new-algorithm-can-save-a...

Recent research has had controlled landing on 2 motors in real robots (and one motor in simulation only). The main trick is to spin the whole vehicle around the z axis (up-down) very fast, and modulate the speed of the remaining rotors to apply forces at different places around the centre of gravity. IIRC the one-rotor version didn't work on a real robot due to limits on the frequency response of the real-world motor…

Sounds plausible but I haven't read about this before and would like to know more, do you have a reference handy?
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