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MIT's Flyfire To Paint Images In the Sky Using Micro-Helicopters

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the bundles-of-led-joy dept.

@engadget mentions that a new project dubbed "Flyfire" at MIT is looking to launch a fleet of LED-equipped micro-helicopters and coordinate them in synchrony to create massive floating images. "By using LED-equipped drones the project pledges to build free-floating 3D displays, endowing them with enough smarts and positional awareness to organize themselves into an airborne canvas. It sounds deliciously exciting and challenging."

14 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Batman? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Maybe this will save on energy costs of using super bright spotlights as Batman beacons.

  2. Deliciously exciting?! by kaizendojo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds scary to me... Sounds more like we'll be followed by 'intelligent billboards'!

    1. Re:Deliciously exciting?! by jhoegl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nothin' a bb gun wont cure.

    2. Re:Deliciously exciting?! by Warhawke · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Brings new meaning to Ray Bradbury's "The Murderer":

      Then, of course, the telephone's such a _convenient_ thing; it just sits there and _demands_ you call someone who doesn't want to be called. Friends were always calling, calling, calling me. Hell, I hadn't any time of my own. When it wasn't the telephone it was the television, the radio, the phonograph. When it wasn't the television or radio or the phonograph it was motion pictures at the corner theater, motion pictures projected, with commercials on low-lying cumulus clouds. It doesn't rain rain any more, it rains soapsuds.

    3. Re:Deliciously exciting?! by Spazntwich · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm from Tennessee, and people around here enjoy many amateur engineering projects involving projectiles. You may have heard of something called a "potato gun."

      I have a feeling free-floating billboards would spark a resurgence in their popularity.

  3. Great for sports! by musicalmicah · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Looks like it would be amazing for sports stadiums. It could even deliver crowd-hyping mascots to various sections of the stadium. I wonder how the power source and recharging issue would be handled, though.

    1. Re:Great for sports! by ae1294 · · Score: 2, Informative

      turn the goal posts into Tesla coils and voila!

      Yes this sounds like a wonderful way to reduce our idiot problem here in the states.

  4. Already been done... by RJFerret · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why reinvent the wheel? Trying to put sheep out of business? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw

    -Randy

  5. You forgot 'annoying as f**k' by northernfrights · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "It sounds deliciously exciting and challenging"

    Yeah, because a 300ft coke ad hovering in the sky above my house is going to be exhilarating...

  6. easy display by recharged95 · · Score: 2, Funny

    For the 1st physical prototype, they display a waterfall.

    Just have them fly 50feet up, and let them malfunction (as expected in the first few prototypes) and fall and call it a success! Now that was easy.

  7. Wind anyone? by SlashDev · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder how long before a gust of wind will disrupt the image...

    --

    TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
  8. Oh The Horror by VorpalRodent · · Score: 4, Funny

    This will be utterly destroyed by an angry mob the first time it gets hacked to display Goatse. Imagine not just disgusting a single person, but an entire football stadium.

    --
    Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
  9. Re:Ah, the ethusiasm of youth by amirulbahr · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Fortunately some people are willing to think outside the square.

    While that is a cool problem to solve, the biggest hurdle they are going to face is getting those damn things to stay in one place.

    Individual units do not need to stay in the one absolute place. They need to stay in one place relative to the entire formation only. The formation can move around quite a bit.

    I think they have their work cut out for them. I predict this project won't get very far. In 10 years they will either still be working on it or the project will be dead.

    I guess you'll never start a challenging project then.

  10. Re:Ah, the ethusiasm of youth by amirulbahr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Accurate submeter 3D positioning is quite hard.

    Hard but solved.