RC – Riveted

Day 9 – Quadcopter Down!

Kevin Morris — Tue, 26 May 2015 01:44:00 +0000

(Posted by Kevin)

The quadcopter (the one built with my own loving hands in August last year) had a very bad day at Fury Cove.

It was flying along like usual, about a quarter-mile from the boat, probably capturing some beautiful video – when it suddenly plummeted to the ground – flipping over and over – and crashed hard on the rocks below.

The crash site was on the other side of the island, so we had to take the kayak to look for it. We grabbed the tiny DVR that records the video feed from the ground and watched the last few seconds of the video. It showed us approximately where to look for the debris field.

Did we mention that the crash site was in a place where other boaters had sighted a grizzly with two cubs that same day? Well, yeah. That.

We knew he crash site was either in the water or on the rocks right by the water. The tide was coming in rapidly, so we knew we had to find it quickly or it would be covered by the incoming tide (if it wasn’t already). We grabbed bear spray, waterproof boots, life jackets, and set out in the kayak. Once ashore we started making plenty of loud noises. We hiked up and over the rocks and pretty quickly found the carnage – lots of small, broken drone bits scattered among the rocks. The ONLY piece that had landed in a tide pool was the GoPro camera (which can’t be flown in its waterproof case, unfortunately). It was a total loss.

Other boaters told us they had seen an eagle flying right in the same area at the time of the crash. There were many eagles around, so that theory made sense. Examining the wreckage, nothing looked wrong with the copter – motors and connections were as they should have been (except crash damage).

It’s hard to get the parts to re-build – especially while we’re exploring in the boat. We are looking at options to replace it so we can capture more video on this trip. We shall see. There are SO many things we still wanted to capture with aerial video…

Day 7 – Quadcopter Video of Pierre’s Echo Bay

Laura Domela — Sun, 24 May 2015 03:40:00 +0000

Kevin made another quadcopter video! Hope you like it, Pierre!

Patos Island Aerial Video

Laura Domela — Thu, 04 Dec 2014 13:40:01 +0000

Ta-da! Kevin's finished aerial video from around Patos Island (watch in HD if you can):

Shot with an FPV Quadcopter. Filmed with GoPro Hero 3+ aboard a Team Black Sheep Discovery Pro quadcopter. Launched from a Nordic Tug 34 anchored in Active Cove at Patos Island Marine State Park, WA.

The music is Isaac Albéniz: "Suite Española No. 1, Op. 47: Asturias" played by Ivan Kalcina.

More about the quadcopter here if you're interested.

Birth of a New Drone

Kevin Morris — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 13:00:31 +0000

(Posted by Kevin)

My last drone was lost at sea in March. Apparently we didn’t do a blog post about it at the time, which is a mystery because it was exactly the kind of event we’d normally blog about. We were on the Oregon coast, and I’d been flying the drone over the beach and along the rocky shoreline all day. The GoPro HD camera was capturing the best-quality video I’d ever gotten from a drone – smooth, sharp, no vibration – and the gimbal was keeping the camera nicely level. I had spent a few weeks building and tuning it to get those excellent results. In First Person View (FPV) mode – it could go more than two miles away – with its long range control and video radio links.

On about the fifth flight of the day, I invited Laura out to watch on the “guest” video goggles. It’s like taking a ride on the drone. I was flying it along the beach, and cut out over the water for a bit – the drone was about 1800 feet away from us when the video suddenly went to static – with no warning. We tried various rescue techniques (just in case it was still out there hovering) including activating the “return to home” feature. We waited a few minutes… there was no sign of it “returning to home”.

We reviewed the video link recording (the lower-quality flight video, not the stabilized HD video), and stepped one frame at a time through the last few frames before we lost contact. Studying the telemetry, we figured out what (most likely) happened. One of the connectors where the battery power comes into the drone had apparently come loose and the whole thing fell out of the sky and into the Pacific Ocean. We hiked along the beach at the spot closest to where it went down. There was no sign of it – and the current/waves were pretty extreme out there where it must have gone down.

Here’s the downlink video of the fatal, final flight:

I ordered all the parts to build a new one that week.

Now, five months later, all the parts have arrived and the new drone construction has begun. This one has numerous upgrades over the lost one – including a much more robust connection where the last one probably failed. Here are some photos of the construction process:

Almost ready to bolt the top on:

The new drone – a TBS Discovery Pro FPV Quadcopter – is now complete and has survived the first 16 test flights.

It has almost three hours of flight time logged, and seems to be even more stable than the last/lost one.

We plan to use this one to do more aerial videos and stills of our travels, and probably more fun projects like our “Chasing Ships” series:

New Drone!!

Laura Domela — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:17:01 +0000

Kevin finally got all of the parts from Team Black Sheep to build his new Discovery Pro FPV Gimbal Quadcopter. He hasn't flown since The Incident, (I can't believe Kevin didn't do a post about The Incident on Riveted, but this'll give you some background if you want, plus more technical stuff than you probably need…) and I was happy to see the box from Hong Kong arrive on the porch a few days ago. He's busy building now and it should't be long 'til he's got a new flying photo machine in the air again!

This is our kitchen table right now. (He probably doesn't need that salad bowl right there in his work space now, does he?)

More Ships in the Columbia River

Laura Domela — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 18:34:36 +0000

Kevin just finished two three four more videos of ships passing in front of our campsite at Skamokawa. So gorgeous, aren't they?

Also, if you're totally into it and want to subscribe to Kevin's hexacopter video channel on YouTube, you can do that here. (That link is also a link to a "playlist" of the ship videos.)

Here's Ocean Hope:

Here's Celestial Wing:

Here's Hanjin London:

and here's Saga Anorinha:

Sunset, and some Hexacopter Aerials of South Beach

Laura Domela — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 12:45:47 +0000

Gorgeous afternoon/evening yesterday at South Beach Campground:

And one with the Airstream:

Kevin took the hexacopter up with the Sony NEX5n on it for some aerial stills of the campground so you could get a feel for what the place looks like overall. Here we are:

Here's a pulled back overall shot:

And here's looking down the beach from just in front of our Airstream…pretty great place to camp, don't you think?

I love it here. Also yesterday early in the evening there were several whales passing by that we could see from the Airstream even without binoculars. Spectacular!

Aerial Shots of Our Spots at Skamokawa

Laura Domela — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:05:46 +0000

Here are a few shots Kevin took (with the Sony NEX5n mounted on his hexacopter) of our spots at Skamokawa Vista Park.

Neat, huh?

Kevin Finished His Aerial Video of Yellowstone River

Laura Domela — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:49:18 +0000

(Taken from the hexacopter, of course.) Oh yeah! And the music is again from local faves 3 Leg Torso!

How beautiful is this place?

Hagerman Pass and Quincy’s

Laura Domela — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 12:25:29 +0000

Yesterday early evening we drove up to Hagerman Pass. Here's the view:

The road got to be pretty rocky and slow and we found a spot we thought we'd use to turn around in. But first, Kevin got out the hex and flew for a few minutes. Here's the road we just came up:

The hex at about 12,000 feet:

Heading back down:

Map (click to enlarge):

After our little adventure we headed into town to try Quincy's for their filet mignon dinner. Sunday through Thursday it's filet mignon, and on the weekends it's prime rib. We were not expecting much (prices start at 8.95 for filet mignon, baked potato, salad, and bread) but everything was delicious and the service was great. And the atmosphere is perfectly Leadville (love the ceiling):

And here's a cloud duck taken from my pillow this morning (it was duckier before I took several minutes to grab my iPhone and click the camera app and try to position the lens so none of the dirt spots on the window got in the way, but you get the idea):