Lately I have been following the kikstarter project “The pocket Drone” which is having a huge impact.
First of all I am a bit pissed off because in the kikstarter project https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdroids/the-pocket-drone-your-personal-flying-robot there is just this mention to Ardupilot!
• APM compatible flight controller 6-axis accelerometers, 3 axis gyroscopes, barometric sensor (altitude)
There is not any comment or anything relating DIYD or 3DR!
Second in this interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyvfu23eMOQ they present the product without even mentioning Arducopter, but when they are asked on what OS do they use they say “currently is based in the arducopter OS, is using an opencourse plataform that we’ve added layers on top” (I am sure you did…) at minute 8:30 if you want to here it.
I think that is totally immoral that a guys that all what did was print a tricoper and arrange with Chinese manufacturer for cheap electronics, pretend to be what they pretend to be!
But the truly important problem is not that. On both sites they are giving to understand that this is product that does not need any special attention or precaution, even less any experience! In a lot of moments things like “it always seemed like either mom or dad (the photographer) was missing from family pictures. We’re proud to announce the launch of The Pocket Drone to address these challenges. Many of our supporters are calling it the "GoPro of drones." “ are said. What! How can you compare a product like Arducopter to a GoPro camera? That just needs you to press a button to record! When in the documentation is said hundreds of times that this is something to take seriously (and I think is not said enough).
So I think this is actually a fraud, they are pretending to sell a thing that they are not selling, but even more important to my point of view is that for the moment there is 1200 people that has not any experience with drones that bought one (I say 1200 because there is 1200 totally RTF kits sold at the moment on Kikstarter).
So in a few months at least 1200 people will go out with a drone thinking that is as easy to control as a gopro. And they all, all without any exception will crash and god knows what else!
I find it really worrying, and I think that since we are the community that is actually behind that project (even though they pretend we’re not) we should take some actions about it. Not allowing that people is tricked, and not allowing not necessary accidents to happen.
Comments
Carles, thank you for posting this and questioning the validity of the project.
What is actually interesting is to see the responses and the responders.
Lately I have become more aware of the association (and separation) of DIYDrones, APM and 3DR.
On many levels I am unqualified to comment on this but (as is normal for me) I'll give it a shot anyway.
On the one hand, 3DR is here to try and figure our how to make money making and selling Multicopters and flight controllers and stuff.
The APM developer guys are here to design and program flight controllers to do really interesting things some with financial motivation, most for their own enjoyment.
DIYDrones is here to be" The Leading Community for Personal UAVs" and they are seriously "open" about everything.
Chris's response as a backer especially is truly enlightening, I don't think any of this would exist at all if it weren't for Chris - He is "numero uno" and if he is backing this thing that says a lot about how Chris perceives the importance of "openness" in the deepest sense.
It makes me personally really happy to see that and certainly embraces the open and free for all concept 100%.
Basically, don't sweat the small stuff and full steam ahead.
On the other hand, there is also a legitimate concern here for safety as more and more of these get into the hands of less and less well qualified "pilots".
Reality is Pandora's Box is already wide open and there is no closing it again.
Regardless of these guys, a swarm of Quadcopters is growing that will make Alfred Hitchcocks movie "The Birds" look like a children's story.
The little FPV Hubsan for $180.00 is remarkable and the number of now as low as $350.00 Quadcopters with GoPro or GoPro-ish capability is growing daily.
Blasting one company contributing to that here is going to have absolutely zero affect on the gathering hoard soon to be here from China.
I actually think there will be a growing number of small to large disasters, which because of the rapid proliferation will be pretty much impossible to stop.
And I really don't think the FAA stands much of a chance at this level either, how are they going to stop $100.00 drones you can buy in your local drug store or direct from China - Laws - Good Luck - That ship has already sailed.
What we at DIYDrones can and should do is to provide the information that people of all skill and interest levels need to fly these things in a safe and sane manner.
I believe this is probably our single most important obligation to the public in the leadership position that DIYDrones is in.
I wrote the safety page on the Wiki - It's great as far as it goes - but it is by no means adequate.
For most people it is the same as one of those cute little warning notices that comes in every package of everything you by nowadays, simply one more piece of useless information to be thrown in the trash as quickly as possible.
I am currently putting together a Wiki Newbe guide based on a wonderful narrative by one of our users RocklandUSA that details his experience with buying a small, light. protected (and truly non-dangerous) toy quadcopter to learn with as an appropriate first step.
Personally I think this should be required by law and people shouldn't be allowed to purchase or fly Phantoms or Iris,s or Arducopters till they can demonstrate a solid ability to fly a toy quadcopter competently.
Even my little smaller than a hummingbird $40.00 Estes quadcopter has solid 6 axis stabilization and is easy to fly.
Not only can spending $40.00 to $100.00 on a toy keep you from turning $1000.00+ into a pile of garbage in a remarkably short period of time, it can also keep you from seriously injuring someone.
As a side benefit these little copters are incredibly crash resistant and will actually survive long enough for you to learn how to fly well.
And they are a lot of fun even in your living room, You need to watch out for aggressive house cats though.
It's not in spite of the fact there are many users, that we have developers willing to contribute. It's because of those users. There's a difference between an end-user, and a company taking advantage of the availability of this source code without putting any skin in the game at all.
Maybe I'm must bitter from spending too much time on other websites where I see companies selling clone hardware slandering 3DR, the developers, etc. and people buying cheap Chinese clones whining about why they don't have some feature implemented...
It would be nice to see more than one company supporting this project.
I get most of us are not flying fast. How many of us are flying with folding propellors capable of having a lead/lag? None that I am aware of. Even in a hover it will happen. Each time the motor changes speed the error will happen. So every time a command to change attitude, or hold attitude against a breeze, wind gust etc. Possibly it could even be the reason they won't post video because there may or may not be a vibration that is impossible to tune out because of the issue?
On the subject of "drones are easy to fly," they are not. If they were easy to fly you wouldn't need a computer to do 95% of the flying for you! Quadcopters I think are impossible to fly without a computer. I remember back in the day of trying to fly traditional helis with actual spinning gyros, flybars and other mechanical means of stabilization. It is a pain and only works to an extent. These are not toys! They are computerized machines, and most of the ones people fly are incredibly dangerous when they crash. If my 2kg quad were to hit somebody in flight they would be hurt bad. There are 4 carbon fiber props that will act just like razor blades and most likely cut to the bone. Even the small quads can do damage. I hit someone with a Blade Nano QX and it had enough power to cut skin. If you were to hit someones eye even with a quad that small I would not be surprised if they lost sight in that eye permanently. To propose drones are harmless flying toys is a bad as characterizing them as dangerous autonomous killers. Used with the proper precautions they can be used safely. But not knowing how the software works, what happens when something goes wrong, and not knowing how to fly it if a sensor or system fails is irresponsible. I had radio interference from a nearby antenna and lost GPS signal on an autonomous flight yesterday. If I had not built the skills to fly manually it would have crashed at 30+ mph. If I happened to be flying around people and or peoples property I know that would have made some pretty serious damage. What happens in follow me mode if the gps signal degrades when you walk under a tree? Or when you walk down the street between two high buildings and the quad loses its position? I get they need to tout the positives in order to sell their product. But its clear they have received no legal advise. The first time one of their drones hits somebody or somebodies something they are out of business. And depending on how they structure their business maybe out of all their personal assets too.
What's wrong with that idea? These multicopters ARE easy to control. Have you ever tried flying an remote control drone (like a fixed wing plane or tradheli) without an autopilot? This is exactly what got Chris Anderson to start DIYDrones in 2007, he and others believed in using robotics to make drones fly better. And with more and more people interested in it and developing more products, maybe someday it will be even easier to fly. I dream of someday being able to just toss a quadcopter in the air and have it autonomously follow me around. It delights me that other people share the same dream. I didn't personally back the AirDroids Kickstarter project, but I hope that they are able to deliver on their claims, and that there will be many more companies and startups in the future that will bring that dream to life, someday.
Physically embedding an APM board into their product as-is and using ArduCopter software without modification does not violate the spirit of open source or the GPL.
It's great that you spend a lot of time contributing to the community. That makes you quite special, because I'd venture to say that most (like 99.99%) of people who are using APM and ArduCopter on their aircraft, have never contributed anything back to the community in terms of source code or attributions.
To use Linux as an example, consider that 850,000 Android phones running Linux are activated every single day, 700,000 TVs mostly running Linux are sold every day, the core services by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon are all powered by the Linux kernel. Despite all the people selling services and devices powered by Linux, few of them advertise that they're using Linux underneath, and there are only 8,000 active developers of the Linux kernel. This is the reality of open source, but it's a good thing. Linux has flourished because so many people are using it.
If they embed APM into their project and it becomes popular, good for them, and good for us too. In my view, more users and more interest is a good thing.
What really are they likely to do that could contribute to the community, other than tuning their PIDS to fly their machine? That's the part that bothers me. I'm also trying to build a business around the Ardupilot community, but I spend a lot of time contributing. At least if this project was buying from 3DR, we would know that they would be contributing by proxy.
Most people in the multirotor world are happily ignorant of all the aerodynamic effects going on with their foamy airplane propellers. ;) Reality is, it seems that it's fine for the propeller sizes used by most. They're so rigid, that they don't really flap much, and thus don't lead/lag much. They do have TONS of vibration from asymmetric loading, but only when flying fast, which most aren't doing.
Carles Gelada, why do you assume that these 1200 customers have zero experience. It is more likely that most of them have at least some knowledge in rc, because they were interested in this project. A few of them even know what an APM is.
"-Why is there such a lack of information regarding who is behind the really important things (Controller, GCS...)?"
Because when you're buing a Pepsi they don't sell it to you saying where they took sugar from. Kickstarter is a place where you have great marketing and sell some product, or you sell nothing.
First of all, i think that the worrying thing is not 1200 users flying APM, but 1200 users without any experience, who bought a drone thinking that APM is something which really isn't, because no one adviced them properly.
So please, if you have something to say, could it be about on of the many and very immportant things that have been said, and not trying to avoid them.. I am listing a few above.
-Why is there such a lack of information regarding who is behind the really important things (Controller, GCS...)?
-Why, even when in the documentation and in DIYD is widely told that this things are not a toy, and are not as easy to control as someone might thought, the kickstarter you give a totally contrary idea (i am not going to argue this point, you just need to go to the page and judge by yourself)?
-Why the only aerial video that you have supplied to your backers is not from the poket drone, and why it is not explicitly said it is taken from a totally different plataform. I think that in unarguable that the most of the backers thought that it was actual video, taken with you product? (i would say that this was made on purpose)
-And in general why do you lie saying that you are actually developing softwere and doing stuff that you aren't ? (below some things I could read from the campain that support that last point)
"currently is based in the arducopter OS, is using an opencourse plataform that we’ve added layers on top"
"@Chun - The iPhone link requires a separate development process for some specialized hardware and we are working as fast as we can on that, although we likely won't have it ready in time for when the Pocket Drone ships. As @Denny suggested, you may be able to control the Pocket Drone with the Fighting Walrus Radio, but we haven't had a chance to test the latest version of the radio so we can't guarantee it will work."
"We are working on an iOS solution but none is available at the moment. Since we want to work in long range and not rely on wifi, you'll need to use a radio dongle that plugs into your device. Keep checking our website periodically and we'll try to make something happen soon."
"We are working on technologies that will enable our flying robots to do obstacle avoidance and machine learning, but those will not be available in version one of the product."
...
This a more than $13 billion industry with several hundreds of thousands of users messing around with everything ranging from AR Drones, DJI Phantoms, 3DR Irises, Cinecopters, Mikrokopters, you name it. If you think that 1200 new APM users flying micro tricopters is going to harm the community, you must be living in a bubble.
Every new user starts from somewhere. I'd rather they start on APM and get involved with this community.
Chris,
"I feel that they have been clear that it's based on APM" just... what?
"The beauty of open source is that people are free to innovate around the basic platform" I think is not the beauty but the esence But I am no against their innovation (on the frame), but against that they are not saying what they are actually selling, how come there in not even a link to Arducopter wiki!
Chris and Timothy,
"If anything, 3DRobotics, DIYDrones, and the open source community stands to gain from the growing market. " No, 1200 people without experience and without caution, flying APM could very seriously harm the community, other people, and those who are flying them (you can get on a big trouble if you crash on someone), actually the only one that could gain is AirDroids, and could gain quite a lot.
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