Off to Aliexpress and Banggood I went. I ordered a carbon-fiber chassis, big strong motors, ESCs, 3-inch propellers, a FrSky receiver, a Devention transmitter, an STM32-based controller, giant li-poly batteries, and all the cables and fasteners I needed. Over the coming weeks the parts trickled in. Finally once the whole kit had arrived, I assembled everything, connected the TTL serial, built the firmware, downloaded it to the controller, and like the brilliant software engineer I am, plugged in the batteries on my bench at home.
Nothing happened. Those of you who have blown off fingers wondering why the firecracker under the Coke can hasn't exploded yet can guess what I did next.
I examined the chassis closely and began fiddling with the cables and connectors. Again, like the brilliant software NOT HARDWARE engineer that I am.
Evidently, I fixed the problem. Which caused four gigantic propellers to begin whirling around my hands and face. And four brushless electric motors to emit their usual high-pitched whine, which today I instinctively hear as them saying to me "You god damned idiot. You are so ours."
I was not injured. But that evening, I came close to slicing at least a couple things off my body. I hadn't appreciated the scale of the thing I was building, or the inherent risk in debugging it once I'd slapped it all together. I shelved the project for years, eventually giving it to someone at work who claimed to know his stuff when it came to drones. I hear he's doing fine.
Disclaimer: this story isn't about code or my own code. But I think it fits here because I approached dangerous hardware with the "build, run, see what happens" mindset of a software developer.