Drone Journalism Workshop/Meetup

[Yuan]

Hey all,

Atom's previous thread on livestreaming UAVs kicked us into action.
No doubt a lot of you will have seen privately operated drones
covering protests and various events from around the world in the news
(and no doubt news agencies are viewing them with envy).

There is of course the question of legality and regulations, but those
aside, I believe there is scope for running a workshop/meetup that
focuses on using small UAVs carrying cameras and/or streaming video.

Early on, we ran a UAV workshop at LHS, which at the time we only had
one working quadcopter to demonstrate. We talked about various
aspects of UAVs/quadcopters and the things to look out for when
building one.

This time we'd like to run a workshop that looks at the practical
aspects of using quadcopters for purposes of journalism and/or
photography, and this time we'll have flight-ready quadcopter kits on
hand for people to get hands-on with, including a couple that have
wireless cameras attached that can stream video to a receiver attached
to a USB video capture dongle (I'm sure someone at LHS would be able
to quickly turn this into a live stream over the internet).

We'll probably structure the day to include a brief introduction,
followed by the rest of the time demonstrating the various methods of
controlling the quadcopter that might be relevant for drone journalism
(manual control using an RC transmitter, autonomous control using
point-and-click waypoint flying, and "follow me" systems that
autonomously follows behind a "tag" device), streaming video setups,
and we might talk a little about automated return-to-launch systems in
the case where the drone looses control signal. Unfortunately we
don't have any large camera mounts for our quadcopters, but we might
strap a cheap still camera to a quad on the day.

I was hoping also that those with experience flying multi-rotors or
fixed-wing drones with cameras could come along and help out. I was
thinking this might be more of a general get-together of those with
experience with, and those who are interested in drone journalism.

We'd be looking at a weekend at the end of January, any interest?

Yuan
Universal Air Ltd.

[Anish]

Hi Yuan,
Sounds like an intersting idea, happy to chip in :) both as a developer and user of multicopters :)
Regards
Anish
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

[Yuan]

Thought you'd be up for it :)

[marc - HackTheMedia]

Hi Yuan

Sounds really interesting, not an expert on drones but can help with
the journalistic aspect and brainstorm/explore new ways of reporting
with this tools (we do the HackTheMedia workshops at HS).
I'll be at HS tomorrow in case you're around for a chat.
keep us posted!

Marc

[Mark Simpkins]

Hi All,

This sounds really interesting, i wanted to make some of the hack the
media stuff before as well. I have been noodling the use of drones in
citizen journalism for a while and been trying to persuade the
frontline club to do a day course on the subject (this coming year is
going to be the year of digital journalism at the frontline, mark my
words ;)
Also something i've been wanting to touch on in the news game project
that i am working on, so it'll be really useful.

Cheers,

mark

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[Anish]

Was wondering if we should extend it to other UAV platforms ( traditional heli's and planes )

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: Yuan <mes...@gmail.com>
Sender: london-h...@googlegroups.com
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:24:25
To: London Hackspace<london-h...@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: london-h...@googlegroups.com

[phil jones]

Yep. I'd come to a workshop on Drone Journalism.

phil

[Yuan]

Just to let people know, Drone Journalism workshop/meetup still going
ahead, but we're pushing it back a bit to either the first or second
weekend of February, hope this is ok with people.

Tell all your journalism and/or drone friends!

[Anish]

Hi Yuan,
Do we want to a doodle thing again for dates :)

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: Yuan <mes...@gmail.com>
Sender: london-h...@googlegroups.com
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:01:22
To: London Hackspace<london-h...@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: london-h...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [london-hack-space] Re: Drone Journalism Workshop/Meetup

[Yuan]

I for one would rather not, there aren't many dates that we have
available to lug our quads to London.

[Anish Mohammed]

Yuan,
I do have quads on me, and multiple flight control boards, happy to bring one along, similarly happy to talk on the topic as well :)

Anish Mohammed
Twitter: anishmohammed
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/anishmohammed

[Yuan]

Sure, that would be great, bring your stuff, and pick a topic, we'll
probably do things maybe a bit ad-hoc on the day with whatever topic
people want to talk about, off the bat. We'll give a short intro on
some stuff, but most of it I hope to be a bit of a meet-up, with
journalism people meeting drone people, and see what exciting projects
come of it.

Yuan

[Anish Mohammed]

will do, i shall see if i could bring arducopter (3dr) with apm on it or something similiar (being representative of DIYdrone  :) ), happy to talk about

1. INS in general
2. comparison of various open source APM platforms (have tinkered with eight different AP platform :) including seven partially or fully open)
   
3. FPV and challenges of stabilisation for multirotors

I am happy to talk about any of the above :)

regards
Anish

[Yuan]

Ok, can you focus a bit more on the end-use side of things? I'd
expect Journalists who want to get into drones to want to learn more
about operating drones, while drone people who want to get into
journalism to want to learn more about things like livestreaming, and
such. So FPV would be a good topic.

If you've got anything flyable that you can demo (especially anything
with a camera), that would also be awesome.

Thanks for helping,
Yuan

On Jan 18, 12:36 am, Anish Mohammed <anish.moham...@gmail.com> wrote:
> will do, i shall see if i could bring arducopter (3dr) with apm on it or
> something similiar (being representative of DIYdrone  :) ), happy to talk
> about
>

>    1. INS in general
>    2. comparison of various open source APM platforms (have tinkered with

>    eight different AP platform :) including seven partially or fully open)

>    3. FPV and challenges of stabilisation for multirotors

[Anish]

Hi Yuan,
Out of curiosity, did u get any emails or messages from anyone informing you of interst :)
Regards
Anish

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: Yuan <mes...@gmail.com>
Sender: london-h...@googlegroups.com
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:39:23
To: London Hackspace<london-h...@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: london-h...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [london-hack-space] Re: Drone Journalism Workshop/Meetup

[marc - HackTheMedia]

Hi Yuan (and all)

Again me (and a couple peeps from HackTheMedia) are really interested
by this,
happy to help brainstorm before and during the event on the
journalistic side of drone reporting.

cheers

Marc

[Anish Mohammed]

Hi Marc,
Would be good to get an understanding of your expectation so that we could be better prepared for the session :)

Anish Mohammed
Twitter: anishmohammed
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/anishmohammed

[Yuan]

Hi Marc,

That would be good, I think it would be easiest if we set a date to
discuss via IRC if there's several people interested in
brainstorming. Is there a date and time that's good for you? I'll be
on this evening from say 6 ish.

Anish, yes, I think there are a few journalism/media students from
various places, and we're trying to get some FPV specialists in on
this as well.

Yuan

[stml]

I'm very interested. Have been playing with balloon drones for reasons
of art and more acceptability in crowded spaces / protests / barrage
balloons etc.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stml/sets/72157627834766392/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stml/sets/72157628277078739/

[Anish Mohammed]

:) interesting have to admit yet to try blimps or balloons

Anish Mohammed
Twitter: anishmohammed
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/anishmohammed

[Mark Simpkins]

Ah yes balloons are something I am very interested in, I have been picturing crowds with balloons and a mesh of video images. It may not be highly directable but could be interesting. Been meaning to discuss cameras and wireless transmitters suitable for balloons...

Mark

Sent from my iPhone

On 17 Jan 2012, at 23:40, stml <james...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Yuan]

Ah, balloons. This is where it gets interesting - strap a light, and
autonomous glider to a balloon, and you've got yourself an automatic
hardware recovery system.

[Dan W]

Is the drone journalism workshop still going ahead? If so, what date
will it be on?

Dan

On Jan 17, 7:01 pm, Yuan <mes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just to let people know, DroneJournalismworkshop/meetup still going

[Anish Mohammed]

Hi Dan,
 me too would be interested in knowing the same. Happy to take on the technology bits around drone/flight stabilisation for camera and fpv, even bringing in quads/hexa with fpv gear (would need to get fpv gear in working order, prior notice appreciated :) )
regards
Anish