A cat is stranded on the roof of a warehouse here in the Fort. Our local weatherman / hero did a segment on the kitty.
This was the result:
From the text, which I can't get to attach with the video:
Many of you have asked to see the view from SKY5 as we
delivered food to a cat stranded on the the roof of a flooded building in the
Arkansas River Flood.
We had four drones at the air at the same time
coordinating the drop.
I was flying ‘visual line of sight’ so it I wasn’t
watching the camera or the images you see here. Our Chief Photographer, Luke
Patrick, had another SKY5 over the drop zone; we worked together.
(Watch 7:02 to see cat walking to the first food drop)
We made several flights back and forth dropping food
due to weight restrictions on the drone (that’s why we couldn’t fly the cat
out, we also didn’t want to get too close and scare it into the water)
UAFS UAFS dropped the water (actually, Sonic ice that
would melt... water would have spilled out in flight)
We dropped enough food and water for at least three
days. Water levels should be low enough by that time for dry ground.
The engineering challenge was to get the payload’s
center of gravity on the aircraft positioned correctly so it wouldn’t adversely
affect performance and flight. We achieved this with zip ties and a bungee
cord.
We initially used a rope but were concerned the
propeller wash would cause it to fly up into the blades so we switched to the
heavier cord.
The large drop container was an empty ice cream
bucket. The small ones were the bottom of a Sonic Route 44 cup and a
Chick-fil-A cup. The handle at the top was made from larger zip ties which kept
their shape after it was unhooked allowing us to free the drone with reverse
tension.
To all the kids reading this... pursue STEM (science,
technology, engineering, & math).
Dream, brainstorm, experiment, fail, try again.
Collaborate. Then repeat.
There is no limit to what your mind can accomplish to
make the world a better place.
UAFS is my university, by the way.
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