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Hobbyists Selling Tesla Coil Kits To Fund Drone Flight Over North Korea

Posted by samzenpus on from the beats-lightbulbs dept.

An anonymous reader writes Imagine for a moment having at your fingertips the ability to send a small robotic messenger — a minion if you will — virtually anywhere in the world and back. Sure, you've seen those fun little drone toys at the mall and perhaps you have had a friend that likes to tinker around with model airplanes, but what you are about to see unfold here is genuinely an unprecedented work of good 'ol fashioned American ingenuity. Apparently a group of hackers has started a kickstarter to build and fly a small drone over North Korea and back and is selling mini tesla coils to do this. "All of the money from this project will be used to extend the distance our drone can fly, so the more backers we have, the farther it will be able to go," they say.

4 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Risks and Challenges by gatkinso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Interesting that "Starting a War" does not appear in that section.

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    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  2. Re:sounds like a hoax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    11 backers
    666 dollars
    All backers at the $55 or more threshold
    All the shitty projects this dipshit started before: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/654955049/created
    Sounds legit

    Seriously, how does rubbish like this make it to the front page? At least with other Kickstarter things that have made it here, there was some legitimacy and momentum already behind the project. However, this is pure shit.

  3. It has "scam" written all over it! by FreelanceWizard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Beyond the obvious problems with the concept (the cost of goods sold for the coils themselves, the extreme improbability of a kerosene-powered drone built by college students being able to make intercontinental flights, the fact that there's no way in hell the FAA or the State Department would permit such a flight, etc.), there's several big red flags on this that scream "scam:"

    1. The creator of the project has put up two projects on KS before. The most recent, the "Banana Project," is either an attempt to troll or the sort of half-baked (pun intended) project I'd expect from someone who wants to get paid to buy a 3-D printer to screw around with. The earlier project, "Super Mario Bros. Z The Movie, was cancelled and pulled, presumably because Nintendo had an issue with some random guy creating what I can only imagine is an amateur animation project. This is not a good track record, especially since the more recent project is from just three months ago.
    2. The creator has no information on his bio, has not backed any other projects, and has no other real information available. Accountability seems non-existent.
    3. The photo of the putative tesla coil is a vague sketch. There's no other technical information on how they'll be built or what they'll look like. As for the drone, there's no information on how the drone will be built or how it will be controlled. There is no prototype, only hand-waving claims. This screams "vaporware." A good rule of thumb on KS is "never pledge to something unless there's at least a prototype."
    4. The submitter of this Slashdot article is an "anonymous submitter." Who wants to bet that the submitter is actually "Trevor Nestor?"

    This KS is an excellent example of a KS from which you want to stay far, far away. Most of the time, the KS community is pretty wise to these sorts of things, but I suppose the combination of "North Korea," "tesla coils," and submissions to Slashdot will lure people in. Don't be a sucker.

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    The Freelance Wizard
  4. Re:Super idea! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who knows what nutty reaction this might invoke from them... It might be a good time to tap the brakes on such private provocations...

    Anyone who has raised children can tell you that you don't prevent tantrums by caving in to them.

    I also disagree that their reactions are "nutty". I believe that they are very well thought out and effective. If they acted normally, they would be expected to treat their people humanely, and be "fair" in negotiations. But by behaving like psychotic kooks, they have conditioned the world to accept any demands that are even halfway sane. The Kim dynasty in NK has been in power for 70 years. That is longer than almost any other current dynasty (excluding those like the Windsors that wield no power), longer even than the Castro dynasty in Cuba. While the Castro dynasty looks shaky, and unlikely to survive the Castro brothers, the Kim dynasty appears to be as secure as ever.