R2OC Drone Footage - Above the Field Action

[neshera]

Hi, I'm the non-professional/hobbyist who flew the Phantom 2 Vision and posted the three videos on YouTube.

A few thoughts/responses:
1) The first priority, overriding all else, was safety.
2) The second priority was not to interfere in any way with match play.
3) The third priority was to recognize that the appearance of a "drone" at a FRC event was only intended to be a novelty/additional bit of fun, and that the competition was the key, and the UAS just a peripheral thought.

Early on, the decision was made to try to have a UAS at the event. I worked for a few weeks with the Audio/Visual people, but due to an unforeseen limitation of their system (only one good composite port available, and no HDMI input available) we could not hook up a live video feed to the main screens, just to one screen in a corner.

I was able to walk through the venue a few days before the event and scope things out, and in addition I was able to see the floor plan layout down to each individual table/pit, and mentally map out what I wanted to do.

Rule # 1: No flying over the audience. EVER.
Rule # 2: Got OK from as many volunteers/field crew as I could corral to fly over the scorers table. (It was kind of hot at the venue, so a few of them asked me to fly over them to get the breeze )
Rule # 3: No flying over the field during match play; OK to fly in between matches, only if drive teams were not on the field (e.g. immediately at the end of a match, before the green lights go on and the gates open)
Rule # 4: Organizing committee members and any volunteer I could talk to were told to bring any complaints/concerns to me, and I would stop flying immediately if there was a real problem (see below)

One person expressed a generalized concern about having UAS's flying in the building, specifically about the large dodecacopter from Mad Labs. Once he found out Mad Labs qualifications, he was OK.

In order to avoid an even longer post, I'll stop for the moment and post some more thoughts in a bit.

[neshera]

OK, some more thoughts/info:

If anyone at R2OC has any complaints or suggestions regarding the use of the UAS's, please post them here or PM me. I either want this to be really good, or we shouldn't do it at all.

The big quadcopter, and the really big octacopter at the R2OC, were from Mad Labs Industries in North Aurora, IL. http://madlabindustries.com Matt makes some very cool stuff, and they are huge supporters of the IMSA FRC team. I talked to them before the event, and they agreed with our restrictions. The big copter can lift a payload of 35-50 pounds. It is drool-worthy.

I have a Taco-RC 2-axis gimbal, but it decided to spazz out the morning of the event, so I had to take it off and go with the stock 1-axis gimbal.

BTW, I flew with prop guards on the whole time. The limiting factor in terms of batteries was not the copter or the controller, I had plenty of spares for those; my phone, however, died just before Finals Match 2 despite plugging it in to a charger around the beginning of semi-finals. (The video stream on a Phantom goes through a phone/tablet)

A camera on a ladder or stick (or long tripod duct taped to a railing, been there/done that) works very well indeed. But the UAS can get much higher than these can go on a practical basis. In addition, the UAS added some interest for the audience, and got a few students interested in yet another high-tech field.

I could not get a GPS signal in the building, although the Mad Labs people could! The problem with no GPS for me was that the UAS constantly drifted one way or another, requiring constant control feedback and hence constant motion on the video. I have some thoughts on this for the next time.

The lack of sound I feel really detracts from the videos, more than I had anticipated. Next time, I will record sound one way or another, and dub it in to the video. The other problem with lack of sound? Nearly impossible to identify the match number of each video. So I will film a few seconds of the match number written on an index card before each flight next time.

Finally, on one video I continued flying until the score was posted, and got a view of the screen for that. That was nice, but as we know sometimes it takes several minutes for a score to post.

So far, no complaints from anyone. There were no crashes//unintended contact with objects.