testing out the toys: drone edition

For basically the first time since the coronavirus swept the nation, I had a pretty fun weekend that was only partly due to horsey activities. I mean, there were still plenty of horses, and obviously horses play an oversize role in the activities I generally consider "fun."

But ya know. There are other things in life too, like drones haha. And, um, friends to socialize with in socially distant but still in-real-life ways. Heck yes!

this poor thing is already clogged with sand after an eventful weekend haha

I didn't have any Charlie time allotted to me on Saturday, so instead I went with a friend to watch his ride in a local gymnastics clinic at Twister's barn. That was super fun from a horsey perspective -- and I definitely want to get Charlie over there at some point.

Mostly tho, it was cool to just be in that sort of setting again -- with people omg!

check out this ridiculously cute pony!! thanks for being a good sport, Blondie <3

Sunday tho. Omg, Sunday. I did actually have Charlie time (1 whole hour, ugh.... tho this coming week that's bumped up to 2 hours yay!!). Wherein I actually put a proper bridle on him and took him into the dressage court for a proper "ride."

Which.... Ya know, the visit time limit meant the ride itself was maybe like 25 minutes total. That's ok tho -- it was just enough. Turns out Charlie can still walk trot and canter on a contact and with a reasonable balance. Yessssss. We'll build from there eventually <3

the drone actually has an in-app game complete with explosions etc. i guess it would be a good way to learn how to fly it, but i mostly ignore it honestly

AFTER that, tho, was the real exciting adventure of the weekend: I took my new drone out for a play date at Isabel's old farm!! Omg and there were PEOPLE there too!!

My buddy Rachael even volunteered to be a test subject for the drone footage -- along with a student's amazingly adorable pony that she's been exercising during the quarantine.

flight!!!

And guys. Wow, this drone is fucking hard to fly.

It's suuuuuper sensitive to wind. Plus, it rotates 360* (obviously) so you can aim the camera in any direction. But the directional toggles on the remote controller are always oriented to the "front" of the drone -- meaning the forward / backward and left / right controls are reversed if the drone is facing you vs when the drone is facing away from you.

That obviously makes sense but I kept sorta getting a little disoriented -- esp when the wind would carry the thing away and I'd start panicking haha.

omg there's video guys

It also doesn't just "hover." Partly bc of the wind, but also maybe some sand has gotten into the rotors so there's uneven power distribution. This means I'm constantly making adjustments with the remote control, which then disturb the stability of the footage. In other words -- it gets bumpy in the video lol.

The last little bit of frustration was that it's not exactly clear when it's recording and when it isn't. For some reason I just assumed that it stopped recording every time it crashed. So I'd get it flying again, and hit "record" again -- but that would stop the video that had already been rolling.

Because of this, I only captured like HALF the footage from the test runs. And naturally, none of the good stuff -- like when I almost flew directly into that saintly little golden pony TWICE, omg so sorry!

also tested out my new camcorder. produces a pretty nice image!!

It's FUN tho. Esp now that I have a couple extra batteries on hand, so I can change out as needed. Each battery gets 6-8min flight time; I used up two during this test over the course of like 30min and still had a third in reserve.

By the end I definitely got a better feel for it too -- altho the best "footage" didn't get recorded sadly. Whenever possible, the drone stays more stable if you can rotate it to keep the pony in frame, vs needing to actually make it move forward or back, or side to side. In less breezy situations it might have been even easier since maybe it would have hovered better.

I haven't really tested out limits for how high or far away from me it can go, bc that's when it really seems at greatest risk for being taken over by the wind. Not sure if that's partly bc my signal gets weaker, or what.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to test those functions out in a wide open field at some point -- where there aren't a lot of trees or whatever for it to get stuck haha.

sheep is unrelated. but cute <3

So. Overall a very successful practice session for testing out its capabilities haha. I'm nowhere near good enough at flying it yet to actually be able to like.... reliably film a specific location or activity -- like if a horse was galloping on a specific track through a jumping combination, for instance. But hopefully with practice I'll get better.

Mostly tho, it's just entertaining haha. Probably not super likely at this point that I'd be able to just hand it over to someone else to get footage of me and Charlie going around. We'll see, tho. If any of my friends wanna give it a whirl, they're certainly welcome!!