Category Archives: Drones

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Busy with Turkey and Snow

Yes, it’s been a little while since the last post.  I wasn’t able to post yesterday as there was too much work to be done after the snow closing Monday which followed the Thanksgiving break.  There’s a number of things going on, but first a little about technology I explored over the Thanksgiving break.

I didn’t spend as much time with VR as I would have liked.  I was able to get a little Beat Saber in, but not much else.  There’s new content in the National Geographic Explorer software, an entire guided Machu Picchu experience.  The page even explains that some locations are recreated as they would have been back in it’s prime for you to explore in VR.  I image that this could be a great “field trip” for a history class.  I think I will ask the STEM folks if the wouldn’t mind purchasing this, it’s not expensive at all at $9.99.

I did get a little drone flying in, although have not had an opportunity for a cold-weather flight to get some images and video of the snowy Berkshires.  We got nearly 2 feet of snow over the last week and it would have been great to get some flying in.  There are extra precautions to take in cold weather flying, the new Mavic Mini I’ve been flying states that it is not suggested to fly in temperatures less than 32 degrees F.  Also you must consider that the higher up you fly, the colder and windier it becomes.  I’m waiting for that perfect “warm” day to get some pictures, but the snow will not be fresh for it at this point.

Tomorrow I am giving a VR demonstration to students from Taconic High School and it looks like we will be walking the plank.  It’s an effective demonstration, and brief, so you can have 10 students try it for a few minutes a piece and everyone can get a turn.  I’ve done this demonstration before and it was interesting, I’m wondering what new I will learn this time!  Tomorrow I will write all about this.

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More Mini Flights

Over the weekend I could not help myself and I took advantage of the nice weather Saturday to fly the little Mavic Mini a few more times.  The little thing is very impressive!  It handles better and with longer flight time than the Phantom 3 Standard, the other drone that BCC owns, and the video capture is very comparable.  The main difference is that the Phantom 3 has more manual settings, the video resolution is still 2K.  My main surprise is how easily this drone is to fly – almost too easy!  One needs to keep in mind that it has no sensors for obstacle avoidance, meaning that if you tell it to it will fly right into a wall (or a tree, or a building) without hesitation.

Here’s some of the video from the weekend.

You will notice that I took great care only to operate only over my own property and to not exceed 400 feet, 120 meters, in altitude.  It’s honestly a bit surprising that the new DJI software will allow you to set the max height higher than that.   I’m still studying to obtain my Part 107 Certificate, however one of the nice things about flying this drone is that since I was flying recreationally and with a weight at just 249 grams, the certificate is not required by the FAA in this case.

One of my favorite features of the Mavic Mini is that it puts subtitles on the video it makes with flight data, such as GPS location, height, and a few other details.  (You won’t see that in the uploaded YouTube videos.)  Perhaps other DJI drones do this, but this is the first drone I’ve used that does that.

My next project is to see if I can get DroneBlocks to work with the Mavic Mini.

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First Mavic Mini Flight

I did not get a chance to post yesterday, there was just too much going on, and one of those things was a test flight of our new Mavic Mini!  First impressions are great.  I cannot believe how easy to fly and stable this drone is, especially for it’s size and price point! The new easier to use software, DJI Fly, is pretty good although I did have a bit of a challenge reading some of the vital telemetry details such as the number of GPS satellites I had locked. Some of that will come with more practice as I get more used to the apps layout.

I was able to accomplish all of the mission objectives.

  • Fly this new Mavic Mini and assess it’s ability
  • Obtain video of Hawthorne’s green roofs for a Green Team project
  • Get some flight time, it had been about a month since my last true flight

The one thing that caught me off guard was that I received more attention from the birds on campus than from any humans!  There was a group of pigeons I believe that was hanging out on the roof of Koussevitzky that did not like this new loud flying thing in their space.  They came to check it out several times, circling the small drone and my reaction was to descend, which seemed to be what they were looking for.  When I went back again a little later, they were even more aggressive and you can even see the birds on a few frames of video 3 about halfway through.  At one other point a hawk of some sort took notice and was interested, but more curious than aggressive.  Once the hawk saw what was going on it was no longer interested.

Here is the full video of the mission.  This video will be edited down and used in a Green Team commercial or orientation video, we’re not really sure what the end product will be.

Yes, I need to be more mindful of shadows and lighting.  🙂