DRONE PRIZE VIDEO THREAD: Six Videos in Six Days -- Stay Tuned!

[Lucidity]

This was a mammoth undertaking. Unlike most of our videos, which are produced entirely by Techinstein and myself or – if we're very lucky – ourselves with one other person, this project and this series of videos comes to you thanks to the efforts of many, many people.

Everyone who you see on camera made a major commitment to making this happen, as did countless other folks that you don't see. It was our privilege among all of them to be able serve as judges, hosts and to be able to bring you this six-part series here on our website and our YouTube channel.

Who are they? Well, first and foremost, there is Portland-based drone entrepreneur Jonathan Evans, the founder and CEO of SkyWard . Along with his staff, he provided both the inspiration and the muscle that made this event a reality. We also need to recognize our friends over at Aerial Technology International, who provided major support for the event – thanks, guys!

We also want to salute the third member of our judging panel, Rich Hanson – the Government and Regulatory Affairs Director for the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA). Rich was kind enough to fly out all the way from Muncie, Indiana to join us for this event, which also received an AMA sanction with the support of Rich, Executive Director Dave Matthewson and other members of the AMA staff.

And, finally, are supremely indebted to our good friends at MediaFX Video Production, who went way, way above the call of duty in putting together these videos. To be honest, I think the scope and scale of this project caught us all off guard once we were swept up in it – but they never waivered. Thank you for all of your hard work!

We would also like to recognize the Cascade Chapter of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) for their support, as well as SOAR Oregon, whose executive director – Mark Morrison – you met in this video.

The first day of this event, which you see in this video, was actually a hybrid of sorts – which probably bears a little explanation. Central Oregon, where the city of Bend is located, was selected by the Federal Aviation Administration to host one of the national drone test sites.

Drones have the potential to be the industry of the future out here so, of course, there is a lot of interest from business and civic leaders, parents, teachers, and students, and so forth. To help orient them to this new industry, the Intel Corporation stepped up to host Aerial Robotics Innovation Day, to coincide with the first day of our competition.

So, Drone Prize was embedded within this other event on the first day of the competition. The following day, and in all of the upcoming videos, we're on our own to conduct the main focus of this event: a series of practical exercises aimed at demonstrating the potential value of drones to society.

Our plan is to release these videos one a day for the next six days, in the hopes that we can share with you some of the anticipation and excitement that we all felt during this event.

 

[Old Man]

Looking forward to more as it unfolds. Thanks for posting.

 

[TechBill]

Would you be willing to add the Closed Captioning to your videos as you release them?

It easy and it will allow hearing impaired folks like myself to enjoy the video .. Here a YouTube on how to add the closed captioning to the video.

Thank you
Bill

 

[Lucidity]

Another day, another Drone Prize video – and four more still to come! As you can see for yourself, the aerial competition began in earnest on the second day. We came up with the Precision Landing Exercise to warm the competitors up for the more challenging scenarios that would follow.

Also, while it was a comparatively simple task, we thought separating the piloting from the FPV observer would be a good challenge that would really test air crew communication – one important facet of teamwork. All aviation, manned and unmanned, relies on teamwork between pilots, ground crews, air traffic controllers, and so on, so we wanted to make this an ongoing theme throughout this competition.

It's an aspect of hobby SUAS operations that hasn't gotten a lot of attention yet, but it's going to grow more and more important as we are fully integrated into the National Air Space – so we might as well start getting used to it now.

Also, just in case you were wondering: Phantom quadcopters were not a requirement for participation in this event – although it's a tribute to the ubiquity of DJI's flying, white blobject that all of the teams used one. Furman University and Three Chicks and a Drone both brought along their own Phantoms to fly during the competition.

As a part of their program, Grady G3 Robotics actually flies Parrot AR Drones, but a crucial piece of equipment to use them for the longer-range missions that were part of this competition was inadvertently left at home. So, contest sponsor Jonathan Evans of SkyWard stepped up and volunteered his personal Phantom for them to fly. Thanks, Jonathan!

 

[Lucidity]

Hey, Old Man! Thank you! It was fun putting this event together -- I'm glad you're enjoying it. Hey, TechBill! I'm sorry -- I don't have time to dive into the Closed Captioning system right now, but I will take a look at the video you provided and try to implement it on our future productions. Thank you for alerting me to the availability of this service, and reminding me that not everyone has the same opportunity to see and to hear that I do...

 

[Lucidity]

Okay, I have a confession to make: a truth to tell that no one beside myself has probably pieced together. A point of idyl curiosity for most of you, I'm sure – but probably of keen interest to the people who actually participated in this competition.

This particular exercise did not go as I planned. We were in a ferocious hurry to put these events together in the final few hours before they actually started and, consequently, I never had time to give a detailed briefing to the folks tasked with laying out the targets for this exercise.

My intention was a random scattering of targets spread over a wide area, to simulate an invasive species spreading across the landscape, which the teams would tally and report back on – but that isn't what happened. I failed to communicate my intentions, however, and only one target was actually laid out, which resulted in this being more like a search and rescue exercise than a survey and report exercise.

My failure aside, it was still interesting to see how the teams approached this problem – and the experience probably did leave them better prepared for the actual search and rescue exercise, which will be in the video we release tomorrow. Stay tuned!

 

[TechBill]

Hey, Old Man! Thank you! It was fun putting this event together -- I'm glad you're enjoying it. Hey, TechBill! I'm sorry -- I don't have time to dive into the Closed Captioning system right now, but I will take a look at the video you provided and try to implement it on our future productions. Thank you for alerting me to the availability of this service, and reminding me that not everyone has the same opportunity to see and to hear that I do...

I am glad you will consider adding it in your future videos, but please do check out the video and it pretty simple to add closed caption to all your video even if you already uploaded it in YouTube

Bill

 

[Lucidity]

Along with the obstacle course – coming tomorrow, if all goes to plan – this was my favorite exercise at Drone Prize. The teams had gained some experience from the previous exercises, which made them better-prepared to tackle this challenge. Also, we finally worked out that there was just something fundamentally broken inside of Debbie Blackmore's DJI Phantom, which accounted for all the trouble she had been having in the previous episodes.

And, of course, we had a surprise in store for them, when an old friend made his entrance after the drill was “over.” Truly obsessive fans will recognize him as none other than Forrest Chambers from the Eugene Fire Department, who worked with us during the series of training exercises that inspired this competition.

My thinking behind having Forrest make his entrance at the end of the exercise was simply to see of the pilot and observer were going to be able to correlate their FPV perspective on the location with the “real world” location, once they got out from underneath the goggles. However, it brought with it another interesting effect, which I did not anticipate.

This unexpected development stress-loaded the participants, which gave us a good insight into their ability to remain disciplined and focused under changing changing circumstances – a crucial capability for anyone who is going to be successful working in any facet of aviation: but most especially when flying in the service of public safety.

 

[Lucidity]

Well, this is it, the final competition of the 2014 Drone Prize: the obstacle course. Admittedly, this isn't really a practical demonstration of the beneficial applications of small unmanned aircraft systems in society – but it was an awful lot of fun.

Techinstein engineered this course himself. In fact, I didn't even see it until a few minutes before the teams got started: I was helping the production crew shoot the interviews you see sprinkled throughout these videos in a secluded conference room on the far side of the resort complex.

By the way, just in case you're wondering, all of the flying portions of the competition were held at Kah-Nee-Ta, a resort in Central Oregon. It's a little more than an hour from Bend, the city where the event started the day before. The resort was very supportive of our project, cordoning off a parking lot for us to use for the earlier exercises, and even alerting their guests to come watch the obstacle course being flown.

Tomorrow, tune in for the sixth and final episode of Drone Prize, when we will announce the winner of more than $10,000 in cool prizes.

 

[Lucidity]

Well, that's it for Drone Prize 2014! Once again, I'd like to thank Jonathan Evans and the whole crew at SkyWard for providing both the vision – and the horsepower – to make this event a reality, along with our friends at Aerial Technology International.

I also want to recognize Rich Hanson from the Academy of Model Aeronautics for making the trip up to Oregon to be part of this event, as well as the team at Media FX Video Production, who put in a ridiculous amount of effort to bring you this series of videos.

As I said before, this was a huge undertaking and I'm so very grateful that we have had the privilege of sharing it with you. Stay tuned to our blog, as well as the Drone Prize website, for details about our 2015 contest. I would encourage everyone to apply – but most especially those folks who have been skeptical about the performance of this year's teams.

Presumably, that means you think you can do better... I'll be looking forward to seeing your entry – and meeting you next summer here in Oregon.