Category Archives: Drones

Posted on by

Drone Flight – BCC Nature Trail

Weather app screenshotToday the weather conditions were perfect for drone flying! The wind was almost nonexistent, it was slightly above freezing, and as an added bonus there was a good number of GPS satellites overhead. Check out the readout from my UAV Weather forecast app over on the side. You don’t get many days like this in January!  This morning I sent some emails to BCC Security and the Pittsfield Airport and got the “OK” for a impromptu drone flight.

I also sent some emails to key faculty who might be interested and a few folks were free to join me this afternoon.  Our goal was to take some video of the BCC nature trail from a new and different perspective, maybe see some animal tracks.  Since there is still a good amount of snow cover a hand launch and landing was necessary, something I had been practicing over the holiday break (check out my previous videos.)

Below is the full video of the flight.  We didn’t have any problems with birds or anything like I have in the past on campus which was great. A few ravens showed up as we were wrapping up (thanks for the identification Tim!) although we had already landed buy that time. The only thing to really be mindful of was the radio tower and it’s guide wires. I should have used the drone to measure the height of the radio tower for our notes going forward, something to do next time for sure. From playing the video back it seems to be 100 feet, however a precise measurement would be nice if for no other reason to set that +10 feet in the drone settings as the return to home altitude in case the drone looses signal with the remote, something I have yet to experience but still try to plan for.

One of our next goals is to make a full 3D map of this are of the BCC Nature Trail and having this first video as a reference might come in handy.  If anyone wants a copy of the original full quality video just reach out and let me know.  I’m looking forward to the next on-campus flight!

Posted on by

A Loooong Break!

This is my first post since being back from holiday break vacation.  The vacation was nice and long, although I wasn’t able to accomplish everything I had planned.  I did spend a good deal of time in various VR apps, I spent some time captaining a starship, and shooting zombies.  I wanted to try and get Oculus Link up and running to do some VR Skyrim, but never got to it.

I was however, able to get some drone flights in.  I was able to do a few cold weather flights and an early morning flight before the sunrise.

All in all it was pretty good flying practice.  You will see that I got a little bold (bored) and went a bit over the woods area to get some good views.  One of my next goals is to do some flying around Cheshire Lake and also to launch a drone off Cheshire Cobbles.

As always, more to come!

Posted on by

FINAL (sort of) Green Team Video

I was finally able to complete the Green Team video, or at least the 2019 version which I’m also affectionately calling the “Chris Laney Version” as he is sort of the star.  When I showed this in the last Green Team meeting this past week the group had several ideas to make it even better including interviews with more people, more shots of the cafeteria, and even more.  So the next version, which I’m calling the 2020 version, will have even more, likely be even better!  Without further ado, here’s the Final 2019 cut.

I did notice one typo in the titles that I will be fixing, the word across is wrong in the portion about the water bottle stations.  I’m sure there’s more I will be tweaking as well, such as taking new video of the Green Roofs in the spring/summer when they are actually green instead of the weird red/brown they are in the video I shot right around thanksgiving which I also posted on this blog.  That was the first flight of the Mavic Mini, already being put to good use.

Which reminds me that I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t even had a chance to write about the STEM Drone Bootcamp Demonstration I did this past week.  It was for forum credit and about 20 students showed up including my Fiance, some of my work-studies, and one of my mentees.  I don’t mind sharing it, so here’s a link to my BCC STEM Drones/UAV Bootcamp Presentation. I only ask that if you use or borrow anything from it that you let me know and give me credit.

My 3 week vacation and holiday break begins tomorrow, so I’m not sure how often I will be writing here until the semester begins on January 21.  Until next time, take care!