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quadrotors meet sharpies (maybe)


the kid

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- It does occur to me that if somebody produced a bit of ladder truss with a rail on the bottom, and then motorised carriages carrying the moving mirrors - that would give some interesting possibilities with up down and then left-right movement - I claim the idea folks!

sorry paul but the left and right bits been done,and I dont mean a par can on a length of T60

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2x1IO-1jEU&feature=youtu.be

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I suspect it would be a case of send them the GPS data and simply turn them loose...with a nasty payload of whatever...probably so cheap you would only fuel/charge them for a one way trip. Got to be cheaper than a missile and you don't expect them back...

 

Would we see them flying over the suburbs en masse? Who can say? Might be a bit tricky explaining why your, effectively demilitarised, "toy" fell on someone's head.

 

 

a 1 way flight would be dangerous unless they went bang at the end to stop people using them.

 

I do recall something about drones being used in public in america ... (link http://www.theblaze.com/stories/report-police-surveillance-drones-could-soon-fly-over-nyc/ )

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Merseyside police were using survelance drones until the caa pointed out they didnt have a licence, sevral other police states forces have signed up with BAE and hope to have them ready before that sports day thats hapening next month.Now were did I put my catapult
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Quite, Hippy.

I was thinking (dangerous I know) when I saw the earlier vids that the Boids programmes would be suited to physical replication with these gizmo's.

1) keep moving

2) maintain the same space between you

3) do not bump into any objects or each other within XY space.

 

I have been intrigued by Boids for years and only wish I were not IT illegitimate, as my younger friends say. Simplistic programmes like this fascinate me and rather than extreme techno-geekery, simplicity could be something to be borne in mind.

 

A few geeks in the US told the Pentagon "we can do this" and cruise missiles were created that could fly around hills and land on a handkerchief. Problem with them was we could never actually use them and when the West Germans discovered the range limitations, due to the tech load, meant that Greenham's missiles would fall on West Germany the faeces encountered the whirly thing. They really were all in it together and down came the wall.

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REf "the kid" and one way flight...yes that was the allusion, ** laughs out loud **.

 

Fire and forget sort of thing, or perhaps loiter for as long as the fuel/charge lasted, almost, then decide on the GPS thing, send them that and watch the "fun" from the Predator's front seat TV. Could probably get onto/into fairly specific targets too. Or perhaps they are a payload for a Predator type aircraft? Who knows?

 

Mateys in Area 51 of course.

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Couple that almost belong in the Cold War thread, Adaptive Optics is phrase your looking for Kerry:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star

 

Anyone remember the liquid lens on the VL500(?) ?

 

One way trip was how Vulcan bombers were expected to fly, complete with eye patch so they could succesfully drop bomb no.2

 

http://listeningblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/amazing-avro-vulcan-stories.html

 

Need top quality mil-spec parts for ultimate reliability:

 

"Technicians bought off-the-shelf equipment at Radio Shack and Best Buy to build a system to allow ground forces to see the drones' video feeds. At least one drone crashed because it had no fuel gauge, and the aircraft ran out of fuel. In another crash, investigators cited a design flaw: The "kill engine" switch was located next to the switch to lower the landing gear, and a ground-based pilot confused the two."

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/06/world/la-fg-drone-crashes-20100706

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  • 2 months later...

It's interesting to note the cyclic nature of things...

Back in 1978, Genesis toured with an innovative system of large moving mirrors suspended above the stage, at which standard fixtures were pointed, the mirrors were stationary for part of the show, then when they started moving the crowd gasped...moving light beams!

They went on to co-found Vari-Lite (not sure of the exact business relationship) and stages have never looked the same since.

Plus ça change...

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And of course, Vari*Lite ran with the Moving Mirror concept with the Series 300 VLM

 

360 Degree Pan and Tilt IIRC

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7kJ8rFN6e4

 

 

Worth noting though that VL always insisted that it was NOT for use with Lasers.

 

A couple knocking about on Gearsource I beleive at the moment.

 

 

Smiffy

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One spinoff on the mirror front, possibly, was/is a lighting sytem for public spaces. Was in Ottawa airport some years ago and was intrigued/delighted to see clusters of convex plastic foil mirrors, possibly, so not too heavy and no need to worry overmuch about weight hanging off the ceiling.

 

Said mirrors were lit by a sort of focussed "HID" (I think). I confess I was impressed by the notion of never needing a tallescope (ahem) (well, Mewp then) to change the lamps and all electrics were at ground level so cost savings, ease of maintenance, not to mention H&S issues were a given.

 

Doubtless there are now many such installations these days.

 

(I suppose if you took the notion past its logical limits and had a theatre big enough you could cover the underside of the grid with tiltable mirrors with the reformable plastic foil doodads lit from a lighting gallery(s) either side behind the pros, all controlled from your desk so that you were not constrained with a fixed set of lanterns, and, lamp changes could be effected in real time if nec, with another lamp/mirror set being used as a temporary back-up until the lamp was changed...oops, sorry, lapsed into fantasy mode...but I do claim the idea tho' ** laughs out loud **. LEDs...meh!)

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