3D Robotics

"Drone crash on campus" is a art hoax

3689490553?profile=original

From BoingBoing:

Things you don't read every day in a college news publication:

“We understand that the recent drone crash incident has caused alarm amongst students and staff surrounding the research and use of drones on the UCSD campus and surrounding areas, and very much wanted to take this opportunity to educate the public about drone technologies and local deployments. While drone crashes are rare and another malfunction is extremely unlikely, we at the UC Center for Drone Policy and Ethics would also like to take this opportunity to teach basic drone safety techniques that can be practiced on a daily basis to keep ourselves and others safe.”

Relax, everyone, it's an art-hoax and part of an exhibition at the university titled "Drones at Home." The artist behind the incident is UCSD professor Ricardo Dominguez.

Hey, "amongst" was a tell.

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Comments

  • Moderator

    Thanks guys and yes I agree I think the author intentionality blurred the background image to give focus to the drone. He also muted the intensity of the colors in the Hazmat suit. I think it would have been a bit more believable if he hadn't blurred the background quite so much. The lighting was good though, that's usually one of the dead giveaways in composites. In this case all three images appear to have the lighting from about the same direction. That's probably why he 'mirrored' the guy in the Hazmat suit in the first place. Anyway I agree with you Joe I think this was a fun distraction to the same-old same-old stuff here. Thanks to Chris for giving us some comic relief!

    Regards,


    Nathaniel

  • Nat, have ta agree with Brian. Yours is way better, except I think the "artist" intentionally blurred the background to focus on the crash and hide the " compositeness".
    Enjoyed this. Sometimes this site is too serious and the comic relief from this is a saver.
  • Moderator

    Yea, your's is better, plus you have the orange cones.

  • That's too funny.  I went to UCSD and studied aerospace.  Would have been interesting to be on campus when this went down.  Lots of strange art at UCSD.

    Looks like I can still be the first (that I know of) to take aerial shots of the place.  This guy just crashed his rig ;)

  • Moderator

    Just for fun I quickly recreated the composite but I left a few small differences. how many can you find?3692562166?profile=originalRegards,

    Nathaniel

  • Moderator

    Jesse,

    Good catch! I was looking for an image that might have been mirrored but I thought he was pushing a wheelbarrow!

    What did that take about a half hour to debunk the hoax! Not bad for amateurs!

    Regards,

    Nathaniel

  • Here it is: http://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/hazmat.jpg

    You'll notice the hazmat guy has been "mirrored".

    hazmat.jpg

  • Moderator

    When I saw this image I immediately thought it was a composite! I took about 20 minutes and I found 2 out of three of the images that make up the 'art'. I found both the foreground and background images but the guy in the hazmat suit is more challenging. Can you find the missing image?

    3692561933?profile=originalsource: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomwatson/1389557019/sizes/l/in/photo...

    3692562029?profile=originalsource: http://www.secretsofthefed.com/drone-crashes-rise-at-airports-w-video/

    Who can find the last image first?

    Regards,

    Nathaniel

  • Admin

    The guy in the background in the HAZMAT suit may be a cause for alarm for some uneducated people in relation to the toxicity of crashed drones! LOL

    Regards,

    TCIII

  • Moderator

    Cough, that's an accurate representation of what most of that type at model scale ends up doing ;-)

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