More of kids becoming the hexarotor

Here is another video of the kids working with the real-time video on a bike helmet.

 

 

 

Some interesting things popped out for us:

• Watch the helmet video when it's on the kid's heads.  Which ways is it pointing?  How much does it move around?
• When they're directing the other group of kids, look what a great job they do using words.  Lots of pointing at first but it gets better and better.
• Kids that are receiving directions also do a good job of taking instructions.  There is value in taking things literally as in "go over to that tree".  Watch the video and you'll know what I mean.

Kids Become the Hexarotor

During a test run prior to our Saturday meeting we realized that we had a burned out motor on the hexarotor... and no spare.  Another lesson learned.  Have spare parts!  If nothing else, the TATTS Project has reminded us all that we need to expect the unexpected.  Sounds like autism doesn't it?

In order to keep the project moving and still meet, we decided to mount the GoPro camera, transmitter and battery to a bike helmet and transmit the signal back to the base station.  We decided to turn the kids into the hexarotor!

One of the activities we did this past weekend was have the kids wear the helmet while riding around the park.  We captured video from the helmet and streamed it back to the monitor, recorded the video on the camera itself and also took video of the child riding.

 

 

 

Dan even got into it! 



Here's a quick video of the system and the kids.  Notice the 'ohhs' and 'ahhs'...  More

I'll post video from the bike helmet and the 'Hide & Direct' game (modified Hide & Seek) that we played as well as soon as I get time to process the video.

Real Time Video!

Our end goal has always been to get a real-time video feed from the hexarotor down to the kids so that we can fully experience flying and begin to work on perspective taking.  The equipment is in and we've completed testing.  We have a transmitter that takes the video feed right from the GoPro camera and beams across the airwaves and a receiver that takes in the signal and passes it to a pair of goggles for one child and a 21" TV for the rest of the team.  And it's all portable.



Initial Test of Video Feed From the Camera to the TV

View from within the Goggles

 

Now let's strap this on the hex and get going!

 

These Kids Are Flying!

Several weeks back we were finally able to get to a wide open park and give the kids a chance to fly the hexarotor.  Some of the kid's background comments (and the parents too) are awesome.

No fancy editing here, just 4 1/2 minutes of raw footage of the kids taking turns.  We didn't have the 'buddy box' working either (that would give the kids their own radio to be able to fly) so we did a bit of hand over hand during flying.  It worked ok.  No crash landings and lots of ooohs and aaahs.

Aerial HD Video - Now THAT'S a way to see the world

Last weekend we finally were able to fly the hexarotor with HD video onboard.  The kids loved it, and I think the parents did as well!   The video is 1080 resolution and looks absolutely fantastic on a big LCD/plasma flat screen.  Wow.  All that remains regarding equipment is adding the real time video and goggles.  I'm convinced that this will be an immersive experience that will really impact them.  One step at a time though.

With the equipment in place, we could finally begin getting at our goal of giving the kids concrete examples of perspective taking.  We started the session talking about what a bird sees from the air.  The kids had great ideas that ranged from trees, mice and even us, to clouds, other birds, houses and cars.  We also talked about what we should do while our bird (i.e., the hexarotor) is in the air and we agreed upon both 'playing dead' and using our bodies to make an arrow on the ground.  The Harlem Shake was a distant third.

Following the discussion, the kids were asked to draw a picture of what they thought the area we were in would look like from the air.  After flying, we returned home to watch the stunning HD video.  The kids then drew another picture to show what they now understood the area to look like.  The before and after pictures really showcase what they learned from flying.

Here are 4 BEFORE maps and several pictures.  Some have pretty good detail about what they might see while others are highly focused on a particular thing (e.g, the human arrow) or broad generalizations.

 

Here are a few AFTER maps.  It was fun to watch their reactions when seeing the video.  They all picked out different things.  There were a good many oohhs and aahhs as well.  Note that after flying, we see the presence of the horizon, lots of trees, and an extensive level of detail throughout.  Some kids were not in the mood to draw but we heard similiar things from them as the watched the video.

 

 

Here are a few pictures of the flight, watching the video and our "human arrow". 

 

 

And a video compilation of the flight from the ground and from the air.

 

View From Above

We got adventurous today and strapped a colleague's smartphone to the belly of the TATTS hexarotor and took it for a test flight in the park.  Very cool.  It was breezy so the hex was jumping around a bit but overall it was pretty impressive.  Looking down at the grass is a bit boring but once we have the landing gear, gimbal and GoPro in place we'll be able to move the camera at different angles.  Then we'll really be cooking.  The kids are absolutely going to love it!

Those 3 tiny dots are Dan, Ben and I.  Ben is the guy making "snow angels" in the grass.  I'm glad to see the hex brings out the kid in all of us.

It flies!

After a working session with the distributor (and replacement of a key part that was bad) I'm proud to say that the TATTS hexarotor is flight worthy.  This thing really works!  We've had it up in the air for several test flights.  Check 'em out below. 

Next weekend we will have the TATTS team together and they'll all get a chance to fly it.  From there we're moving on to phase 3.  Shortly I'll be ordering the extended landing gear, a gimbal (to hold the video camera), the first person view video camera (for real-time footage back to some goggles), the FatShark goggles and a GoPro camera.  Once we have that installed, we'll be in business.

First Attempt - Note the Long Grass

 

Success!