Conservation Drones

"During flight, the electric motor of the drone does produce vibrations which could result in vibration blur in photographs. As a solution, we created a vibration dampening system using low density packing foam. We later discovered that the common kitchen sponge works equally well as a construction material. This instrument for Stable Placement of ONboard Gear and Equipment (iSPONGE) successfully removes vibration blur."

I have the ardupilot APM2 board. It was trivially simple to drop into my Parkzone Trojan 28D (there's a lot of space in the airframe) stuck on with some velcro.

The most difficult thing was waiting for the board to get a GPS lock (sometimes it felt like an eternity but it's quick enough now), making a hole so I can plug in the USB without having to remove the board each time and trying to work on a laptop screen in full daylight...

The best bit so far (for me) is not so much the UAV part but the fact that in "stabilize" mode, you can put the aircraft in any situation (diving, stalling etc) and just let go of the sticks and it'll level out in seconds and in "return to launch" mode it will just lazily circle above your head at a predetermined altitude.

I'm looking forward to trying "geofencing" soon - which is creating an invisible boundary and minimum altitude. Go outside (or under) that and the autopilot takes over and brings the plane back to you.

Thats awesome. On demand city aerial surveillance anyone? Put a smartphone in there and use its camera and high speed mobile internet and the great reception up in the air to stream live.

great idea and project!

Music?

These would be great for hunting rhinos.