How much battery life is he getting? I can't get more than a few minutes of flight time out of my remote controlled helicopter.

Dad sounds fat

Now he'll be able to watch his kid get abducted live on camera -- without having to leave the comfort of his puter chair. Genius, I say. Genius!

That thread was useless without video.

Don't forget Orville, the family cat who never leaves her side, either!

this kid's never going to be able to have a house party

My dad wouldnt have been able to say with any certainty just what grade I was in.

When it crashes into his kids and kills them it'll make a great Twilight Zone episode.

MrEricSir: When it crashes into his kids and kills them it'll make a great Twilight Zone episode.

I was wondering about that, too. Gust of wind comes along and kid's got a 'copter embedded in the back of his skull.

belhade: I was wondering about that, too. Gust of wind comes along and kid's got a 'copter embedded in the back of his skull.

I was thinking a bolt of lighting makes it self-aware and it homes in on the target sending it a tracking signal.

WordyGrrl: Now he'll be able to watch his kid get abducted live on camera -- without having to leave the comfort of his puter chair. Genius, I say. Genius!

At least he'll know who did it.

Helicopter parenting from an Apache Longbow would be kind of cool. "Load the 50 millimeter!"

Blessed are the cheesemakers!

Personal drone for the masses? Can I bolt a remote controlled .38 to it?

Next project will be a scaled down Hellfire missile and a targeting system looking for vans with "free candy" written on the side.

AverageAmericanGuy: How much battery life is he getting? I can't get more than a few minutes of flight time out of my remote controlled helicopter.

I just built one like thus a couple weeks ago! And yeah, even a 5000ma lipo battery will maybe go 10 minutes with no payload.

This seems likely a "proof of concept" excuse to get a multirotor to shadow a target... which does sound kinda fun!

Thanks for the Meme-ries: Don't forget Orville, the family cat who never leaves her side, either!

[i291.photobucket.com image 615x409]

beat me to it. ...

This depends on how old the kid is. If he's in fourth grade he may find it kind of cool. If he's 16 it's creepy.

/you may not stop a kidnapping but you could get the plates maybe

Genius was not in building this. Genius was in the first to do this. Everything since then is derivative.

He is rather bright.

Now, when I take the challenge and comments about not getting any battery life and build a hybrid powerplant that won't be genius or bright, it'll be insanity of trying to keep my mind out of the bottle.

Spartacus Outlaw: Blessed are the cheesemakers!

cheeses saves

MrEricSir: When it crashes into his kids and kills them it'll make a great Twilight Zone episode.

Better yet. a movie

WordyGrrl: Now he'll be able to watch his kid get abducted live on camera -- without having to leave the comfort of his puter chair. Genius, I say. Genius!

Maybe he's working for Donald Love, and has a way to take out kidnappers, too

CruJones : /you may not stop a kidnapping but you could get the plates maybe

The vast majority of abductions are from people the family knows (relatives, friends, associates). So statistically speaking, he would have a better chance of catching a predator by pointing that drone at grandpa.

If he keeps tailing his kid with that drone, he'll be shocked to find out that his kid is banging all the girls in school.

I thought RC planes and helicopters had to be kept by law in line of sight at all time ?

F*** you dad! You never loved me. You just loved your f******* helicopters.

GreenSun: If he keeps tailing his kid with that drone, he'll be shocked to find out that his kid is banging all the girls in school.

Kinda a threadjack but my sister was called by her sons school to come get him as he had been suspended for 3 days for "kinda being involved in a fight" when my sis got to the school she found my nephew sitting in the principals office, looking smug with a bunch of dirt covered girls who were glowering at each other, turns out that each of the girls wanted him as her boyfriend so he arranged a thunderdome style fight, winner gets to be his main squeeze, the damn kid is in fourth grade. She called asking me what I thought and I told her to have him write a how to book and send the first copy to his poor uncle.... 

/oh and I wouldn't be surprised to find that anyone that tries to harm the kid in the article will get either a airborne tazer or a mini hellfire missile for his trouble, either that or find that the drone is merely the spotter for the B-52 he bought on surplus and has hovering on standby....

WordyGrrl: Now he'll be able to watch his kid get abducted live on camera -- without having to leave the comfort of his puter chair. Genius, I say. Genius!

Well, the kid will have GPS tracking on him, at least until they ditch the back-pack.

Still waiting for parents to make their kids wear video cameras like some cops started attaching to their uniform, or maybe just use a smart phone that's always recording. With a wireless data plan the parents can keep eyes on their kids for the entire day, I'm sure teachers won't mind.

I parent my kids with a camera on a drone.

Great, in an effort to be less involved with his children, this guy helps create a seek & destroy algorithm, thus hastening the rise of skynet. Father of the farking year...

Good training for the coming Orwellian state.

digidorm: AverageAmericanGuy: How much battery life is he getting? I can't get more than a few minutes of flight time out of my remote controlled helicopter.

I just built one like thus a couple weeks ago! And yeah, even a 5000ma lipo battery will maybe go 10 minutes with no payload.

This seems likely a "proof of concept" excuse to get a multirotor to shadow a target... which does sound kinda fun!

I actually have to wonder if a little IC engine, dynamo and a voltage regulator wouldn't be a better way of doing it. Sure it plus the fuel is going to be heavy but it sounds like it might fly for longer and you can just run it at it's most efficient speed.

oryx: Good training for the coming Orwellian state.

Orwell imagined the state controlled by central authority -- we're facing the nightmare of an Orwellian state controlled by Farkers (and worse).

Well, good thing is if his kid gets abducted or hit by a car, he'll be able to watch it on a live feed.

Is this a story about Katey Sagal's dad?

Just do it right and inject GPS trackers under the skin.

Whoa. All the paranoia of helicoptering, combined with the passivity and convenience of inattention and delegation. It's like a perfect storm of all that is wrong with modern parenting.

The kid can't walk 400 meters without needing air assistance? Really?

I guess he isn't going to mention the missile system he has installed on it.

In the US at least there on only about 100 child kidnappings a year that don't involve relatives. Probably half of those are stolen cars or kidnappings where the car thief didn't realize there was a kid in the back seat.

I was walking to the bus stop by myself by the time I was in first grade. That was maybe a quarter mile away. And technically, I walked to the bus by myself in kindergarten also, but the bus stopped like 200 feet from our house so that doesn't count.

That was the early '80s, though, so I'm sure school bus services have been cut way back since then.

oryx: Good training for the coming our Orwellian state.

There. More accurate now.

jebus, he created his own drone to spy on his kid.

And the open-source flight software already has a "follow-me" mode that will keep the copter an arbitrary distance from a GPS position delivered by radio. So Wallich made a beacon to fit inside his son's backpack. He chose a RF modem to send out GPS signals to the copter and bam, flying drone kid walker.

what happens after the bus picks the kid up? Does the drone follow the bus all the way to school? Is it fast enough to keep up with a bus?

The Weeners on that page is about how the dad is stupid because now he can't stop a would-be kidnapper. As if there are would-be kidnappers travelling our neighborhoods ready to snatch our children the minute the parents aren't with them. The sad this is to a lot of people that sentence doesn't sound as ridiculous as it is. However, at some point the kid was going to start walking to the bus stop on his own anyway. At some point the kid would insist on it.

Incontinent_dog_and_monkey_rodeo: Helicopter parenting from an Apache Longbow would be kind of cool. "Load the 50 millimeter!"

Load the 50 millimeter what?

Armament
Guns: 1× 30 mm (1.18 in) M230 Chain Gun with 1,200 rounds as part of the Area Weapon Subsystem
Hardpoints: Four pylon stations on the stub wings. Longbows also have a station on each wingtip for an AIM-92 ATAS twin missile pack.
Rockets: Hydra 70 70 mm, and CRV7 70 mm air-to-ground rockets
Missiles: Typically AGM-114 Hellfire variants; AIM-92 Stinger may also be carried.

Link

Pribar: Kinda a threadjack but my sister was called by her sons school to come get him as he had been suspended for 3 days for "kinda being involved in a fight" when my sis got to the school she found my nephew sitting in the principals office, looking smug with a bunch of dirt covered girls who were glowering at each other, turns out that each of the girls wanted him as her boyfriend so he arranged a thunderdome style fight, winner gets to be his main squeeze, the damn kid is in fourth grade

That is farking awesome.

uselesslogin: The Weeners on that page is about how the dad is stupid because now he can't stop a would-be kidnapper. As if there are would-be kidnappers travelling our neighborhoods ready to snatch our children the minute the parents aren't with them. The sad this is to a lot of people that sentence doesn't sound as ridiculous as it is. However, at some point the kid was going to start walking to the bus stop on his own anyway. At some point the kid would insist on it.

Yeah I came in here to say the exact same thing. People who believe that predators are everywhere probably make a lot of fathers really uncomfortable going out in public with their kids. I know that when me and my niece are hanging out I get an occasional stare. Usually it's because I'm clueless around kids and treat her like an adult but sometimes I feel as if they are wondering if I abducted her.

Egoy3k: uselesslogin: The Weeners on that page is about how the dad is stupid because now he can't stop a would-be kidnapper. As if there are would-be kidnappers travelling our neighborhoods ready to snatch our children the minute the parents aren't with them. The sad this is to a lot of people that sentence doesn't sound as ridiculous as it is. However, at some point the kid was going to start walking to the bus stop on his own anyway. At some point the kid would insist on it.

Yeah I came in here to say the exact same thing. People who believe that predators are everywhere probably make a lot of fathers really uncomfortable going out in public with their kids. I know that when me and my niece are hanging out I get an occasional stare. Usually it's because I'm clueless around kids and treat her like an adult but sometimes I feel as if they are wondering if I abducted her.

But you've got to admit. the presence of a drone helicopter hovering above a particular kid might just deter a would-be kidnapper from kidnapping him. The kidnapper might just kidnap some other kid who didn't have a helicopter observing him.

/Or more likely, just make the kidnapper throw a rock at the helicopter first.

Funbags: Egoy3k: uselesslogin: The Weeners on that page is about how the dad is stupid because now he can't stop a would-be kidnapper. As if there are would-be kidnappers travelling our neighborhoods ready to snatch our children the minute the parents aren't with them. The sad this is to a lot of people that sentence doesn't sound as ridiculous as it is. However, at some point the kid was going to start walking to the bus stop on his own anyway. At some point the kid would insist on it.

Yeah I came in here to say the exact same thing. People who believe that predators are everywhere probably make a lot of fathers really uncomfortable going out in public with their kids. I know that when me and my niece are hanging out I get an occasional stare. Usually it's because I'm clueless around kids and treat her like an adult but sometimes I feel as if they are wondering if I abducted her.

But you've got to admit. the presence of a drone helicopter hovering above a particular kid might just deter a would-be kidnapper from kidnapping him. The kidnapper might just kidnap some other kid who didn't have a helicopter observing him.

/Or more likely, just make the kidnapper throw a rock at the helicopter first.

Or as has been pointed out earlier in this thread out just wait our of visibility for about 5-10 minutes for the battery to run down.