The start of something big!
The brainchild of Christian Jeffries and Cornell Herg, the DroneHackers project was created to show how drone technology can be used to help solve real-world problems. The project seeks to inspire the next generation of makers, builders, DIYers, and other creative people, with something that’s entertaining as well as educational. The ultimate goal of DroneHackers is to develop and market a streaming video service for Netflix or Apple2D, with a feel and excitement similar to the popular television series but featuring drones. Produced by Charles Zablan, DroneHackers “Episode Zero” was developed to convey the concept. It’s a high-energy reality TV show centering around a group of dronecentric engineers, pilots, and hardcore
DIYers as they complete various challenges in designing and building drones to meet specific tasks and specifications. Ultimately, the show aims to help improve aerial robotic technology and discover new applications, while pushing the boundaries of physics and computer programming.
We had a chance to chat with Christian and Cornell about the DroneHacker project, and here’s what they had to say:
Since 2014 to 2015. That’s basically ancient times in the drone industry. We started by buying pocket-sized quadcopters from Amazon. We continued to outgrow all these toys until we ultimately researched how to design our own drones. Cornell always wanted a DJI drone, but they were very expensive, so he figured, being a DIY guy, he could just make one himself. Late in 2015, we set up an online web platform called Droneflux, with the goal of making it easy for anybody to design and build their own drones.
Cornell and I met tons of amazing folks during the entire journey of running a company like Droneflux. As we began to network with more and more people, we saw a greater need arise for education in the drone community. We wanted to take our mission behind Droneflux—making it easy to build a drone—and apply the idea to a TV show. Because Cornell and I have extensive experience in the world of film production, the idea of producing a TV-quality pilot episode was not far out of reach for us. The idea behind DroneHackers was not only to show people how easy it can be to build a drone, but to make it entertaining as well!
In addition to creating something educational and entertaining, we also wanted to show people how drones could be used to solve practical, real-world problems. Cornell and I really loved the idea of building ‘the world’s fastest drone,’ so we figured a great way to showcase something of that speed bSgett. oJouhnseCotnhneodllyroandeJiancaksnoenvmillergency
goal for the pilot episode. Design a drone that must:
>> Fly at a minimum speed of 100mph. >> Carry a payload of emergency supplies. >> Successfully complete a staged “emergency response” scenario.
If the drone completes the criteria presented in each episode, the finished quadcopter would then be added to ‘The Vault,’ where the experimental technology would then be made available for study for practical, realworld research. At its core, it’s a show for entertainment that also has tangible, real-life value.
We want to go bigger: larger drones, bigger challenges, higher-tech components. Creating a real episode would take an incredible amount of people and resources. We hope to find people, companies, and/ or video streaming services that would be willing to invest the financial resources necessary for us to produce a season of fullscale episodes.
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