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Intel Wants To Replace Fireworks With Drones (marketwatch.com)
Intel has announced a drone called the "Shooting Star" that has the potential to augment or replace fireworks. The drone weighs about as much as a volleyball and can light up in 4 billion color combinations for commercial entertainment light shows. MarketWatch reports: Whether drone-focused light shows will prove to be more cost-efficient is a bigger question. The devices would only have to be purchased once, but would likely cost much more than a standard small-scale fireworks show. Small-town holiday fireworks displays typically cost about $2,000 to $7,000 for a basic show, according to Premier Pyrotechnics, while the city of Houston spent an estimated $100,000 on its 2016 Fourth of July fireworks show, according to Houston Business Journal. On a grander scale, estimates suggest Macy's Inc. may spend $6 million on its annual Fourth of July fireworks show. Intel's drones are not publicly for sale, and the chip maker would not disclose how much they would cost. For now, the drones are proof of the ability to automate multiple drone flights at once, using software that could be adapted to commercial applications like mapping or inspections.
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom.
People can also watch a fireworks screen saver while staying inside, and yet they keep showing up for real outdoor fireworks.
Those people don't want a fake show.
if they can find a way to have samsung get involved. Now there is your earth shattering kaboom!
Unless you hear a boom, whoosh, BOOOOM! then ooh's and aah's it is not worth going to see a overblown light show.
Passionately Indifferent
in this instance
Fireworks is a lot of fun to watch, but what we often forget is that it is a virtual nightmare for the animals, dogs tends to be scared out of their minds during news years eve, and various cities in Sweden are currently working on banning fireworks altogether.
Truth is, they're environmentally dangerous in every way, fun as it may be.
The idea of using drones for a light show is a nice one, and could be a way to help professionals make a living of this (because they're also now outlawing drones with cameras in Sweden).
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Then in the winter months we can eat raw marshmallows and shiver in front of a recording of a roaring fire.
"You can't replace fireworks with stuff that doesn't intentionally blow up. That's most of the fun of fireworks. That you can make a pretty bomb. That's what's impressive. Of course a drone can do much more color variety. But it's a piece of high tech remote controlled/programmed flight equipment."
The LEDs red glare
Arduinos overheating in air
Gave proof through the implementation cycle
That our Python's still there...
I'm afraid it just doesn't have the same ring to it. Nobody is going to sing that at a baseball game.
I'm surprised TFA doesn't have a video. This is what they're talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
For some reason people these days always seem to want to "disrupt" things. It's not enough to create something new; you have to destroy everything that came before you to be considered a success. I think Intel's drone show looks nice - it's very serene and calm - but fireworks are explosions. This is not necessarily worse or better, it's just a different thing from fireworks, and doesn't look like it'd create the same atmosphere.
On a semi-related note, those who like fireworks might this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... It's a daytime fireworks show that uses colored smoke trails, as well as microcontrollers to synchronize detonations. Some very cool effects.