Quadrotor Drones Playing Catch

Fun & Games Robotics Technology
Quadrotor Drones Playing Catch

YouTube player

They call it “juggling,” which, I must say, in deference to all the jugglers out there: it ain’t. But “catch” is still an extremely impressive addition to the extremely impressive list of extremely impressive stunts which quadrotor UAVs have been pulling off recently. Filmed at the Flying Machine Arena research facility at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich. [via adafruit]

More:

10 thoughts on “Quadrotor Drones Playing Catch

  1. Anonymous says:

    That’s damn cool! so how come Maker store/shed (or sparkfun) or any of the usual suspects haven’t got a quad-rotor kit out yet? just supplying the motors, props, beams, and leaving the rest to us would probably sell pretty well.

    “No products match your search criteria, please try again.”

    1. Anonymous says:

      Check out the Arducopter project:

      https://code.google.com/p/arducopter/

  2. Anonymous says:

    Technically it is juggling, just one ball juggling. Which, honestly, was about as far as I ever got either. And I wasn’t flying at the time either. They aren’t actually catching the ball at all (no capture event), so that’s also a misnomer here. Automated badminton practice?

    Whatever, freaking cool regardless of terminology used!

  3. John DuPree says:

    Back in my nerdy juggling days, we had a rule that it counted as juggling if: # of objects > # of hands in use. Since these things have no hands, 1 ball satisfies that rule. Of course juggling also involves catching so…
    Maybe this is more like quadrotor hacky sack.
    Who cares, though, because it awesome.

  4. Alex says:

    People “juggle” a soccerball using their feet – this is exactly the same (and completely awesome)

Comments are closed.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

View more articles by Sean Michael Ragan

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK