Paper Airplanes

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Jibri Wright

I think the idea of paper airplanes is pretty cool. This was my first time at Nationals and seeing all of the airplanes trying to make it onto the field gave our team a little bit of suspense between matches. Our team even got a few planes near the field (and wrote our team number on them ). I personally didn't throw any airplanes when speakers or matches were going on cause i thought it was rude, but it is honestly something i'm going to remember about Nationals.

Please read the first line of my signature.

[fb39ca4]

Originally Posted by runneals

It would be cool to have someone fly a RC plane overhead of the whole arena that has a camera on it's belly & take photos and stitch together an Ortho image of the arena. Wouldn't that be cool? I see a HamR or RC enthusiast doing something like this, since we have the spectrum that wouldn't disrupt the field WiFi.

de KD0SET

IDK, all those cables that the lights and curtains hang from would be dangerous for the plane.

[coalhot]

Originally Posted by EricH

No, it would NOT be cool. R/C aircraft--of any type--can be very dangerous. I actually have an R/C aircraft that would be perfect for flying in a dome (if it's repaired), and I wouldn't even THINK about flying over the stands, or Einstein, or any field that was being packed up--for that matter, over any field at all due to the overhead cables for the lights being a great target for stray planes, or the personnel on the fields risking being injured should something go wrong.

If I'm talking about my sub-1-lb ultramicro foamy not being safe to fly under FIRST competition conditions, then anything strong enough to carry a camera is going to be even worse--larger, heavier, more powerful, more likely to hit something or someone. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but if I was to endorse such an idea, I would A) call in a professional, or at least somebody with a ton more experience than I do, and B) clear as many people off of the floor as I could, and C) put flags on every cable so they were more visible to the pilot. Oh, and D) listen to the pro when he told me it wasn't safe to fly.

Also, I should remind you that R/C pilots fly on 2.4 GHz. The field can potentially (and sometimes does) operate on that bandwidth, though it's usually on 5 GHz, but an awful lot of other stuff operates there too. I wouldn't risk it.

Quite true. I'm sitting next to a dinky little $30 toy foam plane I got a few years ago. It's quite painful to get hit by the prop: I accidentally took a small chunk of my finger out with it once. Larger RC stuff can be scary (I should know, I have an ArduCopter).

As for a Pro flying the arducopter plane, I'd be uncomfortable with that also. There are many unforeseen circumstances that could cause your airplane to cut out, crash, and cause a large disturbance. Not to mention that you need a sizable plane to carry something that takes decent footage (gopro esque).

As for the planes, I remember seeing many of them in the stream last year, and not many this year. Personally, I'd rather bounce a beach ball of balloon in the stands, less potential for danger, less waste, and more fun.

[ablatner]

Oh boy, this discussion again? I thought we took care of this subject after Einstein last year...

[RohitD]

From someone's first experience at Worlds, I actually sort of liked the paper airplane thing. I was definitely surprised by it, but I don't think it would be a problem if everyone simply stopped making new ones after a while and threw away 5-10 at the end. The group that I was sitting with ended up doing that.
Of course, I guess that getting people to do so is the problem it itself.

[seg9585]

Originally Posted by EricH

No, it would NOT be cool. R/C aircraft--of any type--can be very dangerous. I actually have an R/C aircraft that would be perfect for flying in a dome (if it's repaired), and I wouldn't even THINK about flying over the stands, or Einstein, or any field that was being packed up--for that matter, over any field at all due to the overhead cables for the lights being a great target for stray planes, or the personnel on the fields risking being injured should something go wrong.

If I'm talking about my sub-1-lb ultramicro foamy not being safe to fly under FIRST competition conditions, then anything strong enough to carry a camera is going to be even worse--larger, heavier, more powerful, more likely to hit something or someone. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but if I was to endorse such an idea, I would A) call in a professional, or at least somebody with a ton more experience than I do, and B) clear as many people off of the floor as I could, and C) put flags on every cable so they were more visible to the pilot. Oh, and D) listen to the pro when he told me it wasn't safe to fly.

Also, I should remind you that R/C pilots fly on 2.4 GHz. The field can potentially (and sometimes does) operate on that bandwidth, though it's usually on 5 GHz, but an awful lot of other stuff operates there too. I wouldn't risk it.

EricH, my undergrad school (RPI) owned several radio controlled blimps and several members of our embedded control class (plus local robotics team) attended Championships (and other events) to fly those blimps. They had several sensors and could easily lift a camera. These weren't considered dangerous despite their size. Although slow, a torn blimp (due to hitting a cable, for instance) could have easily hurt bystanders as well.

In regards to EMI in the 2.4 Ghz range, most R/C transmitters use spread-spectrum techniques that minimize interference with itself and with other devices running locally. Even then, 900 Mhz crystals are still used on my local flying fields with plenty of reliability.

[seg9585]

Just to give an idea of the dome's average surface area of paper airplane coverage.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by seg9585

Just to give an idea of the dome's average surface area of paper airplane coverage.

I think that understates the problem. You could not walk out of the dome without stepping on airplanes. Most didn't make it 20 feet.

[Bongle]

Compromise idea:
I think a good solution would be to make it an official thing. Say "the team that gets a plane the furthest during a designated throwing time (between matches when no-one is speaking) wins a prize". You have to write your team # on each plane. You could also have a prize for greatest mass of paper airplanes cleaned up (to help with the litter issue), but that would be harder to check.

This way, everyone knows that it's not ok to throw them nonstop, but doesn't completely squelch the fun that people have throwing them (I was there in 2011, it was great to watch). It's a mini-engineering challenge. It would also let people in the stands prepare for a deluge of planes so people are aware.

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by EricH

No, it would NOT be cool. R/C aircraft--of any type--can be very dangerous. I actually have an R/C aircraft that would be perfect for flying in a dome (if it's repaired), and I wouldn't even THINK about flying over the stands, or Einstein, or any field that was being packed up--for that matter, over any field at all due to the overhead cables for the lights being a great target for stray planes, or the personnel on the fields risking being injured should something go wrong.

It would be cool to have an aircraft flying around taking pictures, but I agree that the Jones Dome -- set up for Einstein, with all of the people in there -- isn't a safe place to have one. Besides, even if it was safe you need to stick closer to FIRST-legal materials. Figure out how to make one of these work: http://www.brickit.dk/index.php?page...s&id=10&step=2

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Bongle

Compromise idea:
I think a good solution would be to make it an official thing. Say "the team that gets a plane the furthest during a designated throwing time (between matches when no-one is speaking) wins a prize". You have to write your team # on each plane. You could also have a prize for greatest mass of paper airplanes cleaned up (to help with the litter issue), but that would be harder to check.

This way, everyone knows that it's not ok to throw them nonstop, but doesn't completely squelch the fun that people have throwing them (I was there in 2011, it was great to watch). It's a mini-engineering challenge. It would also let people in the stands prepare for a deluge of planes so people are aware.

I was thinking the same thing. This might be especially helpful to fill the voids during the time for scores to come up, or between the last couple of matches where all the planned speeches have been given. Asking kids to not do something rarely works effectively. Right before the airforce general comes on stage would be another good time, but limiting it to specific time frames might actually work.

******************************
I was very annoyed by the team that sat in front of me and continuously made planes and threw them into the heads of the volunteers 20 feet in front of them. As they were on Einstein, I didn't ruin their fun by being the grumpy old man, but they did bother me and the 30 or so volunteers they hit in the back of the head (yes, they made an airplane every few minutes for the 2-3 hours we were sitting in the stands during award ceremonies). Looking back, I probably should have just asked them to stop.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Bongle

Compromise idea:
I think a good solution would be to make it an official thing. Say "the team that gets a plane the furthest during a designated throwing time (between matches when no-one is speaking) wins a prize". You have to write your team # on each plane. You could also have a prize for greatest mass of paper airplanes cleaned up (to help with the litter issue), but that would be harder to check.

You could do the latter by division. Just have 4 recycling bins setup at the main street exits. (Note I've never exited from the stands, so maybe there are too many options even at the bottlenecks.) Division with the most weight/bags/whatever gets a shout-out in the next blog post. This would let teams make bunches and bunches (only throwing at the designated time), but still hopefully be invested in cleaning them up.

[Chris Hibner]

I hate to post this since it's going to make me sound like an a killjoy or a typical parent that yells "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye", but here it goes:

I got hit in the side of the face Saturday with a paper airplane. I'm not sure what it was made of, but it actually hurt quite a bit. All I could think of was: a) I'm glad it didn't hit me in the eye because as bad as it hurt there's a good chance it could have seriously damaged my eye, and b) I should put my safety glasses on (which I did).

[Madrose97]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

What's the easiest way to get a bunch of high school kids to want to do something... tell them they can't!

Here is last year's thread on the same subject

I agree with this inmost cases, but the studentsof FIRST are good obidient kids that would have listened if someone told them to stop.

[Oblarg]

Edit: Bayesian updating in light of new information (in the form of posts) has rendered the previous content of this post obsolete. Please ignore.