{"id":9700,"date":"2018-02-13T22:55:51","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T22:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zo-zo.com\/?p=9700"},"modified":"2018-02-13T23:50:18","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T23:50:18","slug":"flying-spark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/?p=9700","title":{"rendered":"flying spark."},"content":{"rendered":"

did i mention i like technology? things that fly? i remember i alway wanted a remote controlled aircraft, actually a bell 47 helicopter but that was hopelessly outside my financial abilities at the time (think preschool) which was just as well as i would have crashed it right away.<\/p>\n

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fast forward a few years and drones have become quite affordable; the fact that my salary has gone up a bit since preschool probably helps too. drones have also become much smarter and easier to fly.<\/p>\n

and i don’t mean the ones you can get for $100 at your favourite discount store. we tried those and they do not fly well. we actually got a cheap one on the basis that we’d be able to acquire the necessary skills before moving up to a more serious model.<\/p>\n

complete nonsense, these small guys compare to proper drones like a beaten up shopping trolley to a range rover.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

we got this one, a dji spark. it’s tiny, about the size of an a5 page but really packs quite a bit of smarts. it can either be flown using a remote controller or a mobile phone, preferably both. immediately on taking off it becomes clear that these guys are in a very different league: they just hover in one place rather than being blown away by the slightest breeze. the secret is that is is actually a little flying computer packed with an array for sensors. the most complex sensor is probably the built-in gps which allows the drone to determine where it is in space and detect if it starts to drift and self-correct accordingly without pilot input. the drone also has a downward facing camera & ir sensors; it measures the height above the ground and ‘sees’ changes in the pattern underneath; this also allows sparky to auto-land or (using gesture control) land on the operator’s hand. there are also forward facing ir sensors for the detection of obstacles in the flight path.<\/p>\n

of course it does not make the little flyer fool- or crashproof but we were blown away by how easy it is to operate and how stable it is in the air.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

the main thing: it is the perfect selfie platform! out of the way stick wielding stone-agers, this is how we do it in the 21st century!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

and we won’t ever look stupid on selfies again!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

did i mention i like technology? things that fly? i remember i alway wanted a remote controlled aircraft, actually a bell 47 helicopter but that was hopelessly outside my financial abilities at the time (think preschool) which was just as well as i would have crashed it right away. fast forward a few years and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-blog","category-the-long-way-round"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/sparky-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7MvER-2ws","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9700"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9712,"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9700\/revisions\/9712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zo-zo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}