Daily Journal

    Ready to Fly

    After the drone finished surveying our test site, we powered her up one more time so all of us could get a chance to see what it is like to fly it. I won’t lie; I was more than a little afraid that I would immediately crash it and turn our very sleek and expensive drone into a fiery ball of warped plastic and wires. Luckily this model is equipped with some failsafe measures that prevent it from flying full speed into stationary objects. This also allows the drone to stay in a stationary flying position if you take your hands off the controls.

    Drone picture
    Close up of the drone that will be used to collect the data for the Sliding Glaciers project.

    Despite my perfect record of crashing every car or vehicle I have tried to pilot in any video game, I cautiously took hold of the very “video game-like” controls to give it a try.

    No one crashed the drone, but we did get some cool footage of the park!

    Haiku of the Day

    Swooping and diving
    to capture views from above
    Mighty tiny drone

    Date
    Expedition

    Comments

    Michelle Hall

    I am wondering how much this drone cost and what its resolution is? Also, what is the life of the battery for flying and the camera/

    Lauren Neitzke Adamo

    Hey! I think it was about 2k (will ask again for the exact price and model) and I will have to find out what the resolution is. The batteries last about 30 minutes each. So we need to carry a lot of batteries with us into the field. Maybe up to 18 each day.