The Collegiate Aerial Robotics Demonstration (CARD) is a robotics competition for college and university students inspired by FIRST. The inaugural event was held at the 2011 FIRST Championship in St. Louis, Missouri. The possibility of a college-level FIRST competition has been discussed for many years. At the 2010 FIRST Championship in Atlanta, Georgia, a group of college students and faculty were invited to a discussion in which FIRST Founders Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers and Editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine Chris Anderson proposed the idea[2] of a college-level FIRST program. Chris Anderson suggested the inclusion of aerial robots in the college level program and demonstrated a robotic quadcopter (a Parrot AR.Drone) and an RC blimp. As a result of the meeting, a planning committee was formed to design and promote a college-level program, chaired by Dr. Christopher L. Jones and Karina J. Powell. In December 2010, a kickoff video was released giving an overview of the program.

[3] Further documents and team updates have established and clarified the demonstration competition and game rules. The possibility of having a full college-level FIRST competition is still being discussed. There are two games played on fields equivalent to the FRC standard size (54 feet by 27 feet). For both games there were two competing alliances, each with two teams each composed of one air vehicle and one ground vehicle. The first game, All Your Base, involves a 3 by 3 grid of 4'6" tall rectangular bases. Ground robots capture bases by shooting projectiles (tennis balls) through openings on one or two sides of the base. Aerial robots capture bases by picking up a virtual payload from their starting location and then landing on top of the base. Teams score bonus points by capturing three bases in a row. The second game is The Best Trajectory. Ground robots score points by shooting projectiles across a large trapezoidal barrier placed at midfield into mobile goals on the other side.

Aerial robots can retrieve foam cube "payloads" from the top of the barrier and drop them into the goals to multiply the score of that goal. Drivers will not be able to see past the barrier. Teams may use their aerial robots to relay targeting data from the other side of the barrier.[4] This game was never played at the 2011 demonstration in order to maintain the learning curve for teams playing All Your Base, as the result of a collective team and planning committee decision. A third game design, named FIRST Flight, was removed from the schedule for the inaugural competition and was replaced with a practice course for the aerial robots. CARD and FIRST severed their relationship after the 2011 season. However, the schools and organizations involved in CARD are working toward setting up a separate competition to continue this program. The 2012 game, whose tournament was to be held at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, involved robots trying to score in a series of towers.

If an alliance scores at a rapid rate, they will have an additional tower available for them to score in for a short period of time.[6] Due to circumstances beyond the teams control, the 2012 competition was postponed. For the 2013 season, the Milwaukee School of Engineering hosted the competition on April 5 and 6. Milwaukee School of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and Virginia Tech competed. Oakland University had to drop out at the last minute due to a fatal crash to their quadcopter. parrot ar drone mercado livreSay hello to Bebop, aka the AR Drone 3.0. parrot ar drone quadricopter brookstoneThis is the latest drone from Parrot and it’s a big upgrade from the much-loved AR Drone. parrot ar drone chile falabella

It’s essentially a flying camera that can even pipe imagery directly into an Oculus Rift headset, taking flying in the clouds to a whole new level. Sticking out of the center of the small drone is a 14 MP camera with a fisheye lens. This setup, along with some nifty software tricks, allows the drone to capture silky-smooth video — the video can even pan and tilt while the drone hovers. Essentially, thanks to the 180-degree field of vision allowed by the fisheye lens, the software captures more video than it needs. parrot ar drone eestiIt then uses home-brew software to cut out the desired bits and discard the rest. microdrone md4-1000 pdfThis allows the angle of view to remain fixed even if the drone is swaying in the wind.parrot ar drone eesti

This setup gives the Bebop a unique selling point over competitors, including models from Phantom that rely on more traditional camera and gimbal rigs. Like previous AR Drones, connectivity is achieved through Wi-Fi and the Bebop has four antennas and can ride on 2.4GHz and 5Ghz frequencies. Still, range through Wi-Fi is limited to, well, the range of Wi-Fi. The Bebop can do much more. Along with the Bebop, Parrot is introducing the Skycontroller that extends the Bebop’s range to 2 kilometers. The tablet or smartphone used to control the drone just mounts in the middle of the controller. Using an assortment of antennas and boosters, the controller boosts the controlling tablet’s signal by 36dBm. If that’s not enough, the Skycontoller can also output the field of view streamed from the drone to an Oculus Rift. You become the Bebop. Early reports state there is a bit of lag. The drone also packs a GNSS chipset that uses GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO data for autonomous flight and return to take-off position.

Sadly, like the AR Drones before it, flight time is limited to a paltry 12 minutes. Parrot has yet to release pricing for the Bebop, instead stating it will cost a bit more than the $300 Parrot AR Drone 2.0 and the $1,000 models from Phantom. It’s expected to be released in the fourth quarter of the year. The Bebop will likely be a hit. This marks Parrot’s third-generation drone. Thanks to the AR Drones before it, the company figured out the way to market and sell drones to the general public. The Bebop builds upon the fun consumers had with the novel AR Drones and adds practicality with a high-def camera and extended range. Lemnos is invested in hardware Tinder Select is a secret, members-only version of the app Airbnb pledges not to replace human community with AI No, you shouldn’t delete Signal or other encrypted apps Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told employees he’s looking for a COO Pebby makes long-distance pet relationships more fun