Hello all.
I’m in the simultaneously enviable and unenviable position of suddenly having an unexpected $6000 to spend on drone-related equipment in the next month in order to start a drone program at the school where I teach. I’m an almost complete novice, so I’d love to hear any advice you all have on what to get with this unexpected windfall.
I’d like to use the money for several different goals:
1) A more-or-less “canned” drone we can use to take good quality video and pictures. In particular, I’d like to be able to use the pictures to make maps and do 3D photogrammetry. I’d like it to be programmable to fly grids, so that we could systematically survey areas for scientific purposes. POV flying would also be important here, as would a pretty decent range. Ideally, it would be somewhat customizable so we could also add other instruments like an IR camera.
2) Several customizable drones or drone kits that could get the students involved in DYIing. In particular I’d like to get students thinking about the physics and engineering of drones, so tinkering with motors, rotors, etc. would be great. This is where I’m having the most trouble, as we need to spend the money now, without knowing exactly what parts we will be wanting.
3) A 3D printer that would work well to produce parts for the above DIY drones.
We already have a number of DJI F450 Flamewheel kits, DEVO 7 controllers, IMAX B6AC chargers, and batteries for the Flamewheels.
The last piece of the puzzle is what to use to run drone flying apps: in the small amount of flying I’ve done, I’ve used cell phone apps like DJI Go and Sidepilot to control the drones and do POV flying. But I’d like to avoid the need for using a personal cell phone with our school drones. Any ideas for devices we could use to substitute for cell phones here?
Any advice people have on any of the above would be most appreciated!
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