Mini drones...thin edge of a large wedge

Prime

I ended up at a comic book/games convention on saturday. One stall caught my eye as I was leaving and long story short. I bought a drone.

Now its only a mini drone, 150m ish range, 15min a charge flight time (less with camera usage). But man this things a lot of fun. Has a camera with great quality, been flying it around the office taking snaps of equally amused and annoyied faces. We are currently in the process of building an obstical course around the office. This could very well be a "gateway" drone for me as im very comfortable around electronics and soldering irons.

Anyone got any good resources or cool things I can read up on. Any legal gotchas (UK) apart from the standard commonsense camera ones?

Donovan Puppyfucker

Ha ha, you'll be building a DJI S1000 before you know it!

Prime

Oh wow, looked them up. I would honestly be ok if thats where I end up ha!

Le_Goat

You can check out this site: http://www.robotshop.com/en/drones.html

I bought myself a drone after watching this video:


Mine is a UDI U818A 2.4GHz 4 CH 6 Axis Gyro RC Quadcopter and isn't anywhere as awesome as these, but it's still a ton of fun. I really dig the 360 button. Push it, and the thing does an automatic flip. Really sick. I had an issue with the charger, so I called the company, who sent me a free charger and a backup battery, so now I have 30 minutes of flight time.

Fleeb

I want a drone so bad.

With stereoscopic cameras.

and an Occulus Rift.

Emissary42

From the experience of several of my friends, a good starter brand are the Hubsan quadrotors that go for around $50-$100. Small enough to not break the bank, but large enough to fly stably.

For those who want highly sophisticated systems that can follow preset flight plans (altitude, speed, waypoints, etc), look into 3D Robotics and or Ardupilot. Those can also enter a "follow me" mode to act as an aerial camera for the bearer of its control/transmitter tablet.