Oolite Bulletins

Did anybody see "The Gadget Show" on Monday 17th? The Stanford University Autonomous Helicopter was amazing!

Now that's some serious AI!

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2 ... 91008.html

DaddyHoggy wrote:

The Stanford University Autonomous Helicopter was amazing!

Just looked at the vid
I must admit though, the best acrobatic flyers are found in nature every other day. At my local fly fishery pond, dragonflys (beautiful colours as always) perform these tricks with the greatest of ease.
I just love watching these little critters in action when i'm sitting on the bankside waiting for that rainbow trout slamming into my lure.
Cool vid though.

gogz69 wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

The Stanford University Autonomous Helicopter was amazing!

Just looked at the vid
I must admit though, the best acrobatic flyers are found in nature every other day. At my local fly fishery pond, dragonflys (beautiful colours as always) perform these tricks with the greatest of ease.
I just love watching these little critters in action when i'm sitting on the bankside waiting for that rainbow trout slamming into my lure.
Cool vid though.

Ohhhh yes, those are really tough beauties! Dragonflies...I had one, approx. 10cm long, crash at 140km/h into my cars front window. When I parked the car few minutes later, it was still on the window. I went out, and it was soooo beautiful! Black-blue body and very large wings...I dropped some tears because of it. However, the reaction was that the dragonfly began to move, as if being a bit numb, then stretched it's wings and did fly away as if nothing had happened at all!

I've also watched many exemplars hunting from sticks at the balcony of my previous home. They would sit on the top of the sticks waiting for some insect to come close enough, then launch very rapidly and get their food and return to the stick. Often they wouldn't fly more than a meter while hunting this style. Very efficient.

Screet