Drone delivery service
indiegogo.com
indiegogo.com
What's the 3D dome for? How does the drone delivery work? It has a social-good and humanitarian angle - awesome, but I don't see how printing 3D statues and a dome fit into that...
etc
I guess the video just left me wanting more explanation.
Still, parts of it could be really cool. I hope they pull it off.
this video might help: https://vimeo.com/28247681
My name is Arturo Pelayo, I am co-founder of ARIA (Autonomous Roadless Intelligent Array, on the web here: www.Aria-Logistics.com). I want to explain that we have been working with ReAllocate in this project since June (http://aria-logistics.com/reallocate-collaboration/).
ARIA is an open source autonomous logistics infrastructure that leapfrogs traditional road infrastructure and unlocks economic opportunity.
While the IndieGoGo video might appear to be disconnected, there is a flow to all of them because we have been building them for over a year both ARIA on its own by using open source UAVs and ReAllocate by trying to solve 'the last mile' problem by building in-country capacity using retrofitted shipping containers.
Back in June, both ARIA and ReAllocate saw an alignment as ReAllocate wanted to do a drone project for Burning Man. Between both groups, we drafted an open call through Chris Anderson's DIY Drones Community and ARIA also began the process of creating awareness of this collaboration on the website.
ARIA also sought out media coverage through contacts at Wired, Fast Company and other publications. Fast Company published an article about it over a week ago and you can read it here:
http://fastcoexist.com/1680223/a-real-internet-of-things-for...
You will see that the Fast Company article above focuses on ARIA as a company that began last Summer when four of ARIA's cofounders met at Singularity University for the 11-week Graduate Studies Program. During that time worked on 'Matternet': a network of autonomous vehicles that could be used to deliver high-value goods to remote regions of the world with no roads.
The Graduate Studies Program focuses on teaching technologies that are changing very quickly, are dropping in cost, are following Moore's Law and that are being integrated into the mainstream (these are called 'exponential technologies').
The comments so far in Y Combinator refer to a lot of "disconnected ideas". 3D printing is expensive at the moment but we believe it will become so cheap in the next decade that it will become obliquitous to the point that farmers in remote areas of the planet could request from their cellphones replacement parts for a broken tractor just by taking a picture of the broken part and an Artificial Intelligence component would analyze the image, determine what is broken and send to a 3D printer in a shipping container a request for it to be printed, billed to the customer and sent to their dynamic GPS location on their cellphone (sound familiar??) -- this is where the analog was realized and we joined efforts to build the project together.
Shipping containers are being considered also by ARIA since last year when the concept was first conceived as they are very easily found worldwide and are extremely cheap. There are over 600 million containers being used each year for the global transport of raw materials and products across the planet, ARIA saw shipping containers as the building block of a standardized structure that could be used as a ground station to host vehicles and recharge batteries. Because these containers would be located in areas of no roads, they would have to use renewable energy sources to charge batteries that power the UAVs that fly in a 10Km radius.
The network of shipping containers thus becomes also a distributed micro-grid that is smart and that can route packages from one station to another. Think of it as The Pony Express 2.0 .
As you can see, there are many ideas being put together and we are working hard at this at ARIA.
You're confusing Y Combinator with Hacker News; they're related but different.
The video is poor because it's inconsistent; it starts by saying that Reallocate aims to "solve specific humanitarian issues" and then explains that the first project is to build statues of people attending Burning Man and delivering them via what appears to be AR Drones from Parrot.
Really? That's the most pressing humanitarian issue they could come up with?
There's nothing wrong with building 3D sculptures of people at Burning Man; but it's bizarre to call this a humanitarian endeavor -- even if "in the next decade" this technology may be used to order parts for "broken tractors".
Also, the speaker in the video talks too fast and drops her voice at the end of sentences, making her speech hard to hear / difficult to engage with.
Really? That's the most pressing humanitarian issue they could come up with?
Unfortunately, they only make sense if you've already read articles on Matternet. It's wise not to beta-test infrastructure before it's beta-ready, so customers aren't alienated. A bottle of pills can be expensive to us in the 1st world. They are even more dear in the 3rd. Better to lose some Burner's statue than some patient's prescription.
I can't help but feel like you're being intentionally obtuse. Nowhere in that video did it claim that the Burning Man test run was a pressing humanitarian issue. Its clear this is just to raise awareness/funds in support of the longer-term goal. The "no pressure" field-test aspect of it probably doesn't hurt either.
The 3D statues are perfect analogs for possible delivery services. Many companies in the healthcare sector have begun looking at 3D printing for building pills and prevent counterfeit medicine which is also a huge issue worldwide.
using open source UAVs and ReAllocate by trying to
solve 'the last mile' problem [...] a network of
autonomous vehicles that could be used to deliver
high-value goods [...] technologies that are
changing very quickly, are dropping in cost, are
following Moore's Law and that are being integrated
into the mainstream (these are called 'exponential
technologies').
Can a quadrotor drone can outperform a local on a bicycle? Or do you have an alternative technology in mind? What kind of payload and flight range do you think you'll achieve?
And then to top it off the whole thing is being made into a TV show? Count me out.
That's not the end goal. If you can deliver a tchotchke to someone, you can also deliver a bottle of pills, documents, cellphone batteries, a Raspberry Pi, or small craft items. Remember that lots of places in the 3rd world don't have roads. Lots of places aren't even very passable by foot in parts of the year. Having any kind of infrastructure at all is a win and will enable better healthcare and more economic activity.
What better way to test such a service than to send trivialities to 1st and 0th worlders? No one's going to die if they don't get their statue, and they might even donate to the cause anyhow. Someone might die without their pills, or their business might take a big hit without a part or a battery. Better to practice on the Burners than on people who actually need it.
Why aren't the positioning the autonomous drone delivery network as something that is more useful for the first world? I think running drone networks to deliver medicine and small good is merely a stopgap measure to building roads. And once roads are built, I feel that real economic growth can finally commence.
<aside>In fact, having this drone delivery network in the 3rd world may retard the development of roads; roads will only be needed to transport big things, and people can get by with continuous delivery of small things via autonomous drones, thus it will take longer for roads to be built because there will be less demand.</aside>
If this dialectic between roads and these drones exists the 3rd world (or rather, our idealized 3rd world with no roads), what about the first? Couldn't these drones be used to reduce the number of delivery trucks, as small, light items would simply be delivered by drone? Think of the reduction in carbon emissions and the reduced cost of road maintenance that would be the result of shrinking fleets of delivery trucks.
The above scenario, I feel, would make for a better pitch video. Showing me how this network can be scaled to improve the environment (and roads) around me is going to make me much more likely to open my wallet than telling me a story about some imaginary farmer with a broken tractor part that can be printed up with a 3D printer.
Delivery in what you describe as "the first world" can only happen when FAA and Air Space regulations change. Currently this is not the case and the Obama administration has proposed to open up the air space for commercial applications in 2014.
The regulations are only the first, there is also ITAR which prevents you from selling drones in the first place.
I agree that there will be much better application in cities. It is all part of building a roadless world and this is what we are doing at ARIA.
As for "imaginary farmers", I am glad you see different applications of the network. Since ARIA is focused on building infrastructure and NOT final applications, I think you should pursue such application.
We believe we are at the dawn of a roadless economy. An open backbone that can handle traffic control and prevent high-speed collisions of tiny UAVs is needed.
You can learn more at www.Aria-Logistics.com
Thanks,
Arturo
It's good you didn't because the 1st one would be putting words in my mouth, and it's apparent I know a little bit more about roads in the 3rd world than you do. (I've actually traveled and worked in parts of the world where there are no roads whatsoever, no electricity/gas/landlines/mobile whatsoever, locals have to take a boat 2 miles on the river to get their mail, and planes have to land on the beach.)
> I think running drone networks to deliver medicine and small good is merely a stopgap measure to building roads. And once roads are built, I feel that real economic growth can finally commence.
You should read the Matternet site. That is exactly the idea. It's a good hand-up idea. Once you enable healthcare, government, and economic activity, you enable the local population to build and maintain real infrastructure. Drones are interesting precisely because they are potentially low cost and "better than nothing."
> In fact, having this drone delivery network in the 3rd world may retard the development of roads; roads will only be needed to transport big things, and people can get by with continuous delivery of small things via autonomous drones, thus it will take longer for roads to be built because there will be less demand.
Unlikely. Drones are simply better than nothing. Once you have more economic activity, then you have the local economic base for real infrastructure, like roads.
Drones, IMAX domes, and 3D printers have nothing to do with building sustainable businesses or Burning Man.
If anything, this is funding an art project so that the artists can go to Burning Man for free. =/
Additionally, I'm somewhat curious as to what their plan is on Oakland.
EDIT: For those curious:
http://www.dji-innovations.com/
https://store.diydrones.com/APM_2_5_Kit_p/br-ardupilotmega-0...
Since October 2011, two groups formed: Matternet, Inc and ARIA .
ARIA formed because we want to stay true to the original summer concept of building an OPEN SOURCE NETWORK were the DIY movement can find applications to be developed within it.
In the original Fast Company article when I was interviewed, I specified to Ariel that while ARIA is fully open-source, Matternet was proprietary (this is the last we knew when the two groups formed).
Because the CEO of Matternet Inc contacted Ariel to have the story changed, it no longer reads "proprietary technology" but "undisclosed".
ARIA has been open source from the start.
Very excited to learn about this project, and hoping it literally takes off.
thanks for your message. At ARIA we have been working hard at this for the past year. You can learn more at: www.aria-logistics.com
Here is a video we put together a year ago while at Singularity University when Matternet was a concept and before there were two groups.
You can't give your GPS transponder back to the drone?
I'm genuinely curious, does this not apply? Do you have some kind of special exemption?
www.aria-logistics.com