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Project Ideas

Auto-skyscape photographer

Pretty simple in theory:
Drone that automatically takes off, flies up to pre-defined and consistent location, and takes pictures of various types of the sky/sunset/sunrise/etc. Would be cool if it had enough flight time to also do a little timelapse or something of said sunset/sunrise.

Difficult areas to make this happen:

  • Autopilot to fly around consistently and trigger pictures at the right times
    • Finding the right times to take the best pictures and whatnot.
  • Auto-landing in such a way that could charge itself automatically and be in a place to upload pics/videos automatically
  • The charging system itself, auto connect and disconnect
  • Landing pad that can protect the drone through all weather AND open/close as needed to let it out when weather is good enough
    • Ridiculous but would be kinda cool if it was like a pyramid or something

Other things needed but theoretically not difficult?

  • Base station to send command and get data back/check its charging/notify when something went wrong, etc.
  • Little weather station (or tie into existing weather station) to decide go/no-go for each flight
  • System to store and review the pics/videos and whatnot
  • Where to put it and how to mount everything.

Would be really cool if it also is solar powered or something and can be mostly self-sufficient as long as it has a data connection of some sort (4G? WiFi? etc)