Kaboom, there was supposed to be a Kaboom

For reasons that will become apparent in the fullness of time @andypiper was kind enough to bring his @ARDrone over to Feeding Edge HQ again last night. The aim, investigate a good way to pop balloons with it. It sounds straight forward, get something sharp, but maybe not too sharp (for safety reasons), fly at the balloon and BANG!
In reality this was not the case. That’s not to say its impossible, we did in fact pop some balloons, quite a few actually. Generally though it was a fatal for the Drone. The safety systems to stop the rotors slicing though things cut in and the Drone, quite rightly, fails safe and crashes to the ground. There is usually a bit of a reset after this. The rotors tended to be the most effective at popping balloons. Sharp attachments out the front still allowed a good flying experience, more so than the cocktail sticks we places on the outer edges pointing upwards.

What is amazing is how robust the Drone is when it does hit the floor. The outer protection for the blades works very well and generally it lands flat on its head. There is a cushioning system in there to airbag the poor CPU and connections.
Again a huge thanks to @andypiper for risking his device and thank you too for not crashing into the predlets, though our wall calendar was not so lucky 🙂
We had quite a G33kfest. It is not often anyone comes to Feeding Edge with gadgets that we don’t have. Andy brought his Kindle (which I had reviewed on The Cool Stuff Collective ep 12 but don’t own) and the AR Drone (must get me one of those!). I responded showing him my Midi Rockband guitar attached to the Mac and converted him to the power of 3D TV with gaming 🙂