Real World Drone Usage

[Andrew Schreiber]

Saw an interesting article out of SFE recently about using drones in agriculture. Thought it might be interesting to share with folks the challenges they faced.

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1537


Biggest take away for me was the difference between engineer thoughts and farmer reality.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Saw an interesting article out of SFE recently about using drones in agriculture. Thought it might be interesting to share with folks the challenges they faced.

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1537


Biggest take away for me was the difference between engineer thoughts and farmer reality.

I read this article as well and really appreciate their candor about their assumptions and then their results.
It always amazes me when a company develops a product for a particular user group, but fails to learn from the group what they need before hand.
At least this company stuck it out and made these "Drones" useful and productive.

As for me and my drone, we just have a lot of fun!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by billbo911

I read this article as well and really appreciate their candor about their assumptions and then their results.
It always amazes me when a company develops a product for a particular user group, but fails to learn from the group what they need before hand.
At least this company stuck it out and made these "Drones" useful and productive.

As for me and my drone, we just have a lot of fun!

To me, it's a lesson a lot of us in FIRST need to learn. You don't really know the problem space until you've actually tried something. Too often we've seen teams "well, we decided we wanted to grasp the ball with two sticks" only to realize that it doesn't work too hot in the real environment. Prototyping, evaluation, and iteration is an important part of the engineering process.

It's also a good lesson on, even professionals miss the mark sometimes. No shame in admitting it, and changing your approach.