Quadcopter Zooming through Yard
Channel: Orion Lawlor
Date: 01/08/2012

First person video shot from my brand new (delivered today!) Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 quadcopter, while flying around my driveway.  This thing is way easier to fly than a normal R/C helicopter, easier to use interactively and get running than a GPS-guided Ardupilot, and at $300 is cheaper than both.

I love the way the copter swoops around, especially when close to the ground.  I'm only on my third flight, though, so I'm not very good at coordinated maneuvers like rotating.  I only this flight figured out that you don't need to scroll up and down, you can just push the slider up and down (rate control).  If you swoop too far, you can just let go of the controls, and the copter will auto-recover to a stable hover.  

If you hit something (and you will!) the motors all stop immediately and you drop out of the sky in "EMERGENCY MODE".  The thing seems quite robust so far, with only one small ding in the gears (which are only $3 each) after two crash landings.  I'd definitely recommend buying at least one package of spare gears when you buy the copter.

The only other frustration is the battery life--the 1000mAh lithium battery (3S) only provides a little over ten minutes of flight time, so you can literally watch the battery meter drop as you fly.  If you're not patient, or can't arrange to wait an hour between flights to recharge, buying a few spare batteries would be a good idea too.

There's no sound recording onboard, so I added a voiceover afterwards, but my microphone isn't very good.  Sorry about the buzzing!