Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota Let's Go Places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, come fly
Speaker 1: with me, let's fly, let's fly away. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: I'm La, and I'm Joe McCormick. Today we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about one specific sliver of the future of sports
Speaker 1: right specifically, the kinds of sports that don't involve moving
Speaker 1: your body a whole lot. My favorite kind the less
Speaker 1: moving of my body, the happier, the more competitive I
Speaker 1: can think. Actually, I am a champion at not moving
Speaker 1: table hockey that you're pretty good at table I'm pretty
Speaker 1: good at I'm actually pretty good at table tennis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at that. If I weren't a very
Speaker 1: small girl, I would be really good at those like
Speaker 1: Ninja Warrior course things. Yeah. We actually you have you
Speaker 1: been to the course here in Atlanta. I'm like a
Speaker 1: little spider. I can go right up those walls. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kinda we have a we have a a Ninja
Speaker 1: Ninja Warrior style um training ground here in Atlanta. Playground
Speaker 1: like adult playground, yeah, kind of like kind of like
Speaker 1: one of those adult sized obstacle course type deals. So
Speaker 1: in the past week, we've talked about how different, you know,
Speaker 1: advancing technologies can change sports that exist today, like making
Speaker 1: them safer, maybe having a football technology that would make
Speaker 1: it less likely for you to get gravely injured, or
Speaker 1: even technologies that could boost human capabilities, which bring in
Speaker 1: the question of fairness and what is human achievement in
Speaker 1: that kind of world. Replace my bones with with adamantium.
Speaker 1: So that's not what we're gonna look at today. Now,
Speaker 1: we're going to look at things that have not been
Speaker 1: considered as sports in the past, but are on the
Speaker 1: verge of becoming perhaps even a major sport in the future.
Speaker 1: So um, an example of this in the past might
Speaker 1: be just the standard robot battles, right, something that definitely
Speaker 1: got some coverage. Uh, there are several TV shows that
Speaker 1: were all about robot wars, and some of them were
Speaker 1: more about pitting various builders against each other. Some of
Speaker 1: them were let's put your robot against the house robots
Speaker 1: and this sort of, uh, this obstacle course and see
Speaker 1: if you can get through that kind of thing. We're
Speaker 1: looking at sort of an extension of that today. We're
Speaker 1: specifically going to look at drone races, but before we
Speaker 1: do that, let's at least talk about some of the
Speaker 1: other stuff we've we've covered in the Realm of drones
Speaker 1: because we mentioned it once or twice, yes, previously on
Speaker 1: the podcast, we talked about delivery drones. In December, it's
Speaker 1: called droning. On other related listening, Jonathan and I did
Speaker 1: a tech Stuff episode that was the history of drones
Speaker 1: and the modern day commercial and military implications of the technology.
Speaker 1: It was a pretty full episode. That one came out
Speaker 1: in October and is called The Big Deal About Drones.
Speaker 1: So if you would like a review of drone technology
Speaker 1: and stuff, then then go check those episodes out. And
Speaker 1: we're specifically talking about drones that are under human control today, right,
Speaker 1: we're not talking about autonomous drones that team's program to
Speaker 1: go through an obstacle course. This is a human pilot
Speaker 1: that is depending on the type, it may even be
Speaker 1: more than one human pilot, although the all the ones
Speaker 1: I was looking at was a single person controlling the
Speaker 1: in real time, controlling a drone through of course exactly.
Speaker 1: So that kind of leads us to what is drone racing.
Speaker 1: Typically it does involve a pilot trying to get the
Speaker 1: best time when navigating a flying drone through a complicated
Speaker 1: course as quickly as they possibly can. They may have
Speaker 1: to race against other pilots at the same time, so
Speaker 1: it's not always just a time trial like you know,
Speaker 1: see if you can run this distance the fastest kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Sometimes it's a race race where you can
Speaker 1: have collisions and stuff that will impact you'll make it
Speaker 1: more fun. Yeah, well, the banana peels are air banana peels.
Speaker 1: That red shell or maybe it's the blue shells. The
Speaker 1: blue shells, the one that's the seeking one that goes
Speaker 1: after the person in first place at any rate, that's correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my Nintendo knowledge is that hasn't completely left me. So
Speaker 1: it's it is. Uh. It is one of those things
Speaker 1: where it makes it more exciting, both for the pilots
Speaker 1: and for spectators. Right, the possibility that that two pilots
Speaker 1: are gonna have to duke it out. There could be
Speaker 1: a collision that could that could change the course of
Speaker 1: the race, not the physical course, but the outcome. Depending
Speaker 1: upon the style of the race, pilots may all be
Speaker 1: required to use the same equipment. This is not the
Speaker 1: case in all of them, but there are somewhere in
Speaker 1: order to really test the skills of the pilot, everyone
Speaker 1: has to use the exact same style of drone, and
Speaker 1: in that way, it's incredibly similar to something like NASCAR,
Speaker 1: where the rules governing how your car can be designed
Speaker 1: are so strict that there can be pages of rules
Speaker 1: on something just as simple as tires, like they want
Speaker 1: to make sure that a person's win or loss is
Speaker 1: more due to their capability as a driver as opposed
Speaker 1: to the superiority of the machine they are in, which
Speaker 1: is funny because if you go back and you watch
Speaker 1: all those old movies where people are drag racing, it
Speaker 1: seems like they're always talking about the car. They're comparing
Speaker 1: their cars. My car is better than your car. Oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I'll see you on the drag racing strip. Well, drag
Speaker 1: racing is a little different from NASCAR racing, but I
Speaker 1: see what you're saying. Yeah, there are actual drone races
Speaker 1: that are similar to those drag races. I mean, I
Speaker 1: doubt they're racing for pink slips, but they actually allow
Speaker 1: you to build and modify your own drone and race
Speaker 1: it against other people's drones, so you might be using
Speaker 1: very different UH layouts, designs, perhaps different motors um and
Speaker 1: so therefore it really comes down to not just the
Speaker 1: skill of the pilot but also the capabilities of the
Speaker 1: machine itself, so you have both kinds. It just depends
Speaker 1: upon what the race rules state is allowed. Like if
Speaker 1: it's one where everyone gets the same sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: you don't bring your own drone there. You are issued
Speaker 1: one UH usually one per race. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: um an agility is really important in these right because
Speaker 1: you're you're often are flying the drone under, over or
Speaker 1: through obstacles. Because you're flying a drone, the race course
Speaker 1: can be three dimensional. It's not just a you know,
Speaker 1: out and back or a loop around. It might involve
Speaker 1: having to increase your elevation or decrease it. It may
Speaker 1: involve going through an area where you can't physically see
Speaker 1: where the drone is. In those races, typically they are
Speaker 1: first person view or FPV races, you rely upon a
Speaker 1: video feed from the drone itself. The pilot does right, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the spectators just watch what's going on, but the pilot
Speaker 1: would be relying upon a camera mounted on the drone,
Speaker 1: and the pilot would be wearing a headset that would
Speaker 1: get the video feed from his or her drone and
Speaker 1: from their perspective, it would be like sitting in the
Speaker 1: cockpit of of a jet or some other flying device,
Speaker 1: and that you would be flying through the course. So
Speaker 1: you have to be able to recognize obstacles and make
Speaker 1: decisions very very quickly in that case as part of
Speaker 1: the skill. Uh. And it's incredible if you watch videos
Speaker 1: from the various FPV style races and you get to
Speaker 1: see what the pilots see. I can't. My brain does
Speaker 1: not work that fast. My my fingers definitely couldn't react
Speaker 1: fast enough. I would be the guy ramming the drone
Speaker 1: into the side of the wall over and over again
Speaker 1: until it finally couldn't fly anymore. Sure, I mean, but
Speaker 1: but think about think about the first time that you
Speaker 1: saw someone else playing like Castle Wolfenstein, and how I mean,
Speaker 1: did did you have the same reaction? I know I did.
Speaker 1: Like I was, I was like, it is physically impossible
Speaker 1: for me to control a video game that does that thing.
Speaker 1: And now I'm like, I'm old enough that I was
Speaker 1: the first person to see that I saw play Castle Wolfenstein.
Speaker 1: But I get what you're saying. Because I've definitely seen
Speaker 1: people who are far better that I than I am
Speaker 1: at various twitch based type of gaming, and and it
Speaker 1: is it's like there are different species. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to imagine the amount of time
Speaker 1: dedicated to that, to to develop that sort of skill. Um. So,
Speaker 1: the that's a specific type of drone racing. Not all
Speaker 1: drone racing is first person view racing, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it is, especially today. Um And some organizations, like
Speaker 1: the Drone Racing League have even gone so far as
Speaker 1: to set up specific rules and points systems to award
Speaker 1: pilots and give them a score at the end of
Speaker 1: each race, to allow for a kind of a league
Speaker 1: based competition, right, so that you can have various types
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, qualifying rounds and semifinals, that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. And we'll talk more about that's a little
Speaker 1: bit later, but first let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: the earliest drone races out there. And when we say early,
Speaker 1: it's not like this dates that far back. The drone
Speaker 1: racing scene is pretty young. Yeah, because because the commercialization
Speaker 1: of drones is pretty young. Yeah, I remember seeing I
Speaker 1: think the first one I ever saw it was maybe
Speaker 1: two thousand seven or two thousand eight, and it was
Speaker 1: a parrot drone at CS and I was really impressed
Speaker 1: by it. But since then we've really seen it get
Speaker 1: uh embraced by a hobbyist market and then start to
Speaker 1: blossom out where it's no longer just a a bleeding
Speaker 1: edge kind of thing like the early adopters have had
Speaker 1: their hands on it for a while. Now we're starting
Speaker 1: to see a lot more people get interested in this
Speaker 1: particular type of technology. So let's talk about the first
Speaker 1: national drone racing competition in the United States. Well, this
Speaker 1: was actually held just last summer. The very first national
Speaker 1: one was held in Sacramento at the California State Fair
Speaker 1: on July uh and it was that it was the
Speaker 1: very first national drone racing competition and the races took
Speaker 1: place on a soccer field. The prize money for winners
Speaker 1: to dollars, so there isn't some funds for this. People
Speaker 1: are interested and they had lots of sponsors. I went
Speaker 1: to their website as tons of logos and corporate insignias,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure the hydro logo was in there somewhere probably,
Speaker 1: And you can watch some of these races in video
Speaker 1: forum online. The races that I saw attended to be
Speaker 1: sort of what we were talking about earlier, the twisting
Speaker 1: tracks with obstacles, kind of like a Mario Kart track. Actually,
Speaker 1: um and there were a hundred and twenty pilots going
Speaker 1: into the competition. According to some news reports, they had
Speaker 1: to put netting up around the soccer field to reduce
Speaker 1: the risk of a runaway drone maiming a spectator, right, yeah. Typically, Uh,
Speaker 1: one of the things you can get on a drone
Speaker 1: are the little the propeller guards. It's a circle that
Speaker 1: protects from that sort of thing. But obviously, if you're racing,
Speaker 1: you might want to reduce any weight on your so
Speaker 1: you're like, let's get rid of those and turn this
Speaker 1: into a face slicing machine. Measures off. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: when you want to have these, uh, these sort of
Speaker 1: barriers up just in the case that either maybe a
Speaker 1: radio signals lost. It might not even be the fault
Speaker 1: of the pilot, right It could be a technical failure
Speaker 1: that would cause a problem, or it could be especially
Speaker 1: if it's a first person view race that the pilot
Speaker 1: has misidentified where the next marker for the course happens
Speaker 1: to be right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that if you
Speaker 1: have taken the safety measures off, you also do not
Speaker 1: take faces off. And so the winner of the competition
Speaker 1: was actually an Australian, which I thought was funny because
Speaker 1: it was the first U S national championship and yet
Speaker 1: it had international participation. So the winner was Chad and
Speaker 1: no whack of Brisbane, Australia and uh, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: they're gonna hold another one this year. I believe it's
Speaker 1: going to be in New York, right yeah, uh. And
Speaker 1: so I was reading a few articles about this and
Speaker 1: there was one I came across that was really cool.
Speaker 1: It was a CBS News article and they talked to
Speaker 1: one of the competitors from the competition named Zoe Stumbog,
Speaker 1: and she she gave some quotes that I thought were interesting.
Speaker 1: I want to know what y'all think about this. So
Speaker 1: she used to be in into motorcycles, and she said, yeah,
Speaker 1: motorcycles were my thing. It was everything to me, like
Speaker 1: being able to ride. It gave me this whole experience
Speaker 1: of being outside my body into the world and living.
Speaker 1: I really couldn't live without it. But then she had
Speaker 1: a medical issue that restricted her to bed for a
Speaker 1: long time, a period of months, and it prevented her
Speaker 1: from riding motorcycles anymore. And so she reported that she
Speaker 1: got very depressed for a while until one day she
Speaker 1: went to a hobby shop and discovered a little micro
Speaker 1: quad copter and she immediately fell in love with it.
Speaker 1: And she has been doing drone racing. So you can
Speaker 1: actually go to her YouTube channel and check it out.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about a couple of those videos
Speaker 1: in a minute, but she went on to say that,
Speaker 1: um that she said quote, once I put the camera
Speaker 1: on it, you start doing the first person view, and
Speaker 1: it really was like riding around on a motorcycle. You
Speaker 1: were living in the world around you and no longer
Speaker 1: in a bed sitting down feeling hurt, depressed or whatever,
Speaker 1: and nothing else mattered when you had the goggles on. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I thought that was interesting, Like
Speaker 1: I thought of drone racing as a kind of like, uh,
Speaker 1: kind of like a video game, like sitting back and passive.
Speaker 1: But I I guess that's probably not the case. Really,
Speaker 1: I I can totally get what she's saying because I
Speaker 1: think back to when I was a kid and I
Speaker 1: used to ride my bike a lot, and I lived
Speaker 1: on a really you know, it wasn't a super steep hill,
Speaker 1: but it was a very tall hill, and once you
Speaker 1: started getting up to speed, like you sort of do
Speaker 1: have almost an out of body experience like it. It's
Speaker 1: the closest you feel that you're going to get to flying,
Speaker 1: short of being on a hang glider or or jumping
Speaker 1: out of a plane or something like that. And uh,
Speaker 1: and we've talked before about virtual reality experiences that are
Speaker 1: so immersive as to make you feel as if you're
Speaker 1: actually in the environment that's being simulated. Right, I hesitate
Speaker 1: to call drone racing type of virtual reality. It often
Speaker 1: uses the same equipment virtual reality uses. But because the
Speaker 1: actual environment is not virtual, and I get really picky
Speaker 1: about such things, I don't call it there. It's not
Speaker 1: virtual reality. It's remote reality. Yes, I would agree entirely
Speaker 1: with that that um that moniker. I would say it's
Speaker 1: remote reality, and but it's it still has that feeling
Speaker 1: of immersion. In fact, people say, like when you wear
Speaker 1: those FPV glasses and you're piloting, it feels like you're
Speaker 1: in one of those I would not be surprised to
Speaker 1: see video of pilots working these and watching them kind
Speaker 1: of duck the heads as they crash. I'm sure you flinch. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: yeah I can. I can just because I just think
Speaker 1: about like passive experiences, like watching a movie and occasionally
Speaker 1: kind of leaning whenever you know, like you're really into
Speaker 1: the film and there's maybe like a race sequence or yeah,
Speaker 1: same sort of thing, except you're in control, which gives
Speaker 1: that immersion feeling a much greater sense in the person. Right,
Speaker 1: you feel more immersed because you what you do matters, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So and and I even got some of the sense
Speaker 1: just from watching some of these videos. I mentioned that
Speaker 1: Zoe Stumball has a YouTube channel and it's called Zoe
Speaker 1: Full Throttle. I went and checked it out. Uh, And
Speaker 1: there's some great nerdy in jokes in some of the videos,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it's just it's just first person
Speaker 1: video of the drones point of view as it's flying around,
Speaker 1: and you can really get into it. I watched one
Speaker 1: that was set to the Legend of Zelda theme music.
Speaker 1: But then there was another really cool one that was
Speaker 1: a first person view of a drone flight zooming in
Speaker 1: between tall trees in this forest like setting, and it
Speaker 1: was set to Star Wars music, and then I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I get it, Oh, I get it. They're recreating the
Speaker 1: view of the speeder bike race from Return of the
Speaker 1: Jedi in the forest Moon of Indoor, when there's zooming
Speaker 1: around in between the trees, and it works pretty well.
Speaker 1: I was watching this video and I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I'm there. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty awesome. And so the
Speaker 1: opportunity to use drones in that kind of entertaining way, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we we've seen some interesting applications of that already,
Speaker 1: but then incorporating that into the race experience, you can
Speaker 1: see how this could really lead to some potentially amazing
Speaker 1: immersive forms of entertainment. Well yeah, I mean one of
Speaker 1: the things I was reading about and thinking about was
Speaker 1: the idea of spectators of drone races not just watching
Speaker 1: the drones all zoom around, right, having on their own
Speaker 1: FPV goggles on. Theyre not controlling the drones, but if
Speaker 1: you know, you pick your drone and you see from
Speaker 1: its point of view. Yeah, especially if we got some
Speaker 1: some some fancier equipment in there's some three six degree cameras,
Speaker 1: some VR goggles involved, Like that sounds a really motion
Speaker 1: sick potentially, but but be like so much fun. What's
Speaker 1: a good race without a little bit of vomiting? That's
Speaker 1: what I always say. It takes me back, so Uh.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing is we when we went into the
Speaker 1: research for this knowing that this is a relatively young sport, right,
Speaker 1: a young activity that hobbyists have been doing for a
Speaker 1: few years. But we're starting to see ramp up into
Speaker 1: something that's that's getting more um mainstream media attention. Over
Speaker 1: the last maybe six months or so. We had a
Speaker 1: question in our notes, just are there any official organizations
Speaker 1: for drone racing? Boy? Howdy? Are there? There are so
Speaker 1: many that you know. Part of that is because it's
Speaker 1: so young that they're probably gonna be one or two
Speaker 1: that ultimately draw the most membership, But there are a
Speaker 1: lot that are out there. Some of them are very
Speaker 1: regionally based, so there may be an official local chapter
Speaker 1: of some of these in your area. UM, if you're
Speaker 1: in the United States, one place to go check is
Speaker 1: the u s d R, a site that stands for
Speaker 1: US Drone Racing Association and its mission is to help
Speaker 1: bring the new sport of remote controlled multi rotor fpv
Speaker 1: U a vs into the mainstream they're not going to
Speaker 1: do it like that. Yeah. I was just about to say,
Speaker 1: here's a hint, guys, let's cut down some of the
Speaker 1: track and yeah, yeah, you a V. If you've never
Speaker 1: heard that term before, is is unmanned aerial vehicle. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So as part of that, their association works to create
Speaker 1: guidelines for races so that they can make sure that
Speaker 1: any competitions that are set up are fair, that they
Speaker 1: have appropriate safety considerations in place, that sort of stuff
Speaker 1: in order to allow this this activity to thrive. Like
Speaker 1: what that's what that organization is dedicated to. They don't
Speaker 1: want to see, uh, someone put together a shoddy event
Speaker 1: and then it ends up hurting the blossoming sport as
Speaker 1: a result. They also provide resources to people who are
Speaker 1: interested in finding groups that race drones. So if you're
Speaker 1: in the United States, it's a great resource. The Drone
Speaker 1: Racing League is another organization. It's a it's a relatively
Speaker 1: young one, relatively new one. Uh. They announced their first
Speaker 1: competitive season just back in January, so they have not
Speaker 1: been around for very long at all. Yeah, it's April.
Speaker 1: We're recording this. Yeah, so they hope to combine video
Speaker 1: from from the drones themselves and from the third person
Speaker 1: perspective videos which are actually often captured by other drones
Speaker 1: that are carrying like four K cameras. So you've got
Speaker 1: the drones that are that the pilots are using, they
Speaker 1: have an HD camera mounted on them, and you've got
Speaker 1: the drones that are just flying around the course that
Speaker 1: can get you know, good shot of the racers zooming
Speaker 1: by them, um like you do in sports. That's a
Speaker 1: pretty common method for getting footage in in UH football
Speaker 1: and stuff like. Sure. Yeah, And what's interesting to me
Speaker 1: is that the HD video that these drones are capturing,
Speaker 1: that's not the video that's going back to the goggles
Speaker 1: that the pilots are wearing them. The reason for that
Speaker 1: is HD takes up a lot of bandwidth. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and then that would be a communication problem with then
Speaker 1: a single space, especially if you've got more than one
Speaker 1: drone going at the same time, right, and even if
Speaker 1: they're all working on different channels, it's just such a
Speaker 1: huge demand to be able to transmit that amount of
Speaker 1: information that quickly. What would tend to happen is you
Speaker 1: would have some latency or lag, and that means that
Speaker 1: the pilots would not be able to control the vehicle
Speaker 1: very well. If you've ever played a video game that
Speaker 1: had really bad latency issues, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Where you know, you see the jump coming up, and
Speaker 1: you press the button when your character is at the
Speaker 1: appropriate spot, but your character just keeps running and then
Speaker 1: runs off the edge of the cliff because the game
Speaker 1: was several steps ahead of where you were seeing it,
Speaker 1: and you can see is your character falls to its
Speaker 1: untimely death. It's like a kind of flirp in the
Speaker 1: air when the jump button finally goes through. Now, imagine
Speaker 1: that that happens to you. When you're controlling a drone
Speaker 1: moving at more than a hundred miles per hour and
Speaker 1: there's a narrow hallway coming up that you have to
Speaker 1: maneuver into. You're pretty much gonna end up with a
Speaker 1: bunch of drone pieces on the ground because you cannot
Speaker 1: physically move anticipated at the right time. The lag will
Speaker 1: totally mess you up. Plus, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: guys have ever experienced latency in a VR headset, that's
Speaker 1: a one way ticket. The Pukeville as gonna get you
Speaker 1: sicker than a dog so quickly because latency that that's
Speaker 1: what gives you that that swimmy feeling that things are
Speaker 1: not quite right. And if if you're going on a
Speaker 1: miles per hour and things are not quite right, that's
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna get sick pretty quickly. You know. I
Speaker 1: just now had a thought that the next thing after
Speaker 1: drone race, it's going to be drone demolition derby. Isn't
Speaker 1: it already exists? Well, wait just a bit and i'll
Speaker 1: tell you about combat. Yeah, oh no, no you're not.
Speaker 1: That's in our notes. When they get there, i'll tell you.
Speaker 1: So it's not long though, you don't have to wait
Speaker 1: very long. Um. So, the speed's involved in the races
Speaker 1: that dr L is putting on are are pretty intense.
Speaker 1: According to dr L, they can be up to around
Speaker 1: a hundred twenty miles per hour orde kilometers per hour.
Speaker 1: That's incredibly fast. And keep in mind the pilots are
Speaker 1: seeing this from a first person perspective, and some of
Speaker 1: the courses include lots of tight turns and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: ducking down areas where you know you can see where
Speaker 1: you have to go, but you can't see past where
Speaker 1: you like. It goes around a corner where you're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to see until you get around the corner.
Speaker 1: And the pilots have never flown the courses before during
Speaker 1: these competitions, so it gets pretty. It relies on a
Speaker 1: lot of skill and agility. It also relies on all
Speaker 1: out of technological ability at the DRL actually, in order
Speaker 1: to cope with getting this live video feed at those
Speaker 1: speeds back to the pilots and have them be able
Speaker 1: to respond in time, the LEAK designs its own radio
Speaker 1: communication systems both into the drones and into the architecture
Speaker 1: of every event space, and they set up right so
Speaker 1: the pilots are seeing kind of a standard definition video.
Speaker 1: It's not that same HD feed that you get in
Speaker 1: the finished product. In fact, d r l A said
Speaker 1: they plan on having these events happen and then cutting
Speaker 1: together a video to show what happened in the race,
Speaker 1: so that spectators can watch the video because I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, if you've ever seen video of one of
Speaker 1: these events from outside the first person view perspective, very
Speaker 1: quickly it becomes boring. You're not looking at anything because
Speaker 1: the drones will zoom pass, they'll get out of your
Speaker 1: field of view, and then you're just kind of waiting
Speaker 1: for another zoom. Yeah, and that'll that that's not satisfying.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's one of the reasons why some of
Speaker 1: the other organ thozations have come up with stuff like
Speaker 1: the demolition derby approach, because that's something that a crowd
Speaker 1: can experience in person and enjoy as opposed to a
Speaker 1: race where you have that moment we're like, wow, those
Speaker 1: things are going fast and they're gone now, So I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll find out who won later. Spectator of
Speaker 1: F zero. Yeah. Yeah, unless you're somehow magically able to
Speaker 1: travel along like having that first person's view experience, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know with it with us. I've been to
Speaker 1: a couple of car races before on very curvy courses
Speaker 1: where like, like I was sitting by a hairpin turn
Speaker 1: and and there were multiple different kinds of cars. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like a standardized race. There were different cars that
Speaker 1: were coming by, and A they were so loud, and
Speaker 1: B it was this hairpin turn, and every single car
Speaker 1: that came by, I was convinced that it was going
Speaker 1: to crash and everyone was going to die and it
Speaker 1: was gonna be the most upsetting thing. So I was
Speaker 1: entertained by that for a good while. I was about say, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a fun day, but it's very tense,
Speaker 1: like car racing. You probably probably slept really well that night.
Speaker 1: Like I was so tired from being tense. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to say, but but yes, I could see how
Speaker 1: that would get very dull very quickly with drones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the cool things that dr L plans
Speaker 1: on doing is using lots of different locations for their races,
Speaker 1: including things like arenas where drones will race not just
Speaker 1: around the arena, but down these hallways. So like the
Speaker 1: entrance way you would have to walk through to get
Speaker 1: to the arena from the lobby, drones may have to
Speaker 1: duck down that same hallway, go through a backstage area
Speaker 1: essentially before coming back out through the arena area. UM,
Speaker 1: and they'll have to fly through various boxes that are
Speaker 1: all lit up that are the indicate markers that you
Speaker 1: know that that's kind of like flags in a slalomn
Speaker 1: course you have to go through to to qualify. UM.
Speaker 1: But they'll also look at using things like abandoned buildings.
Speaker 1: Apparently there's an abandoned mall in Los Angeles that's one
Speaker 1: of their courses. And also they're playing on using some
Speaker 1: landmarks as potential race courses as well. I don't know
Speaker 1: how they get the uh clearance to do that necessarily,
Speaker 1: but that's that's in their plans as well, right up
Speaker 1: the nose of Mount Rushmore, that's right. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: d r OL is one of the companies that provides
Speaker 1: the drones to the pilots. It brings I've heard like
Speaker 1: about a hundred to each event, just in case there's
Speaker 1: like that many crashes and they need to just send
Speaker 1: another one out. The pilots, by the way, are paid
Speaker 1: by the league, um, though perhaps not very much because
Speaker 1: I've heard that most of the pilots have full time
Speaker 1: jobs when they're not running around at the events. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I imagine that because this is so early in the
Speaker 1: life of DRL that perhaps what they're hoping for is
Speaker 1: for it to to rise to a level where pilots
Speaker 1: could be paid a living wage just from professionally competing
Speaker 1: in these in these kind of races. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's absolutely their goal. Uh. Their method is to score
Speaker 1: pilots based off of passing certain checkpoints. They get fifty
Speaker 1: points for two checkpoints per race. UM and also that
Speaker 1: you get ten points for every second you finished the
Speaker 1: race under a two minute cap, so that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: And and then that race determined are that all of
Speaker 1: those points together determines your score for that heat of
Speaker 1: a race, and races consist of three heats UM. Each
Speaker 1: heat involves a new drone for each racer, so that
Speaker 1: way you don't have to worry about the fact that
Speaker 1: if you've just raced that you know the drone you're
Speaker 1: using now has got a lower battery, so each one
Speaker 1: is supposed to be fully charged and up to spec,
Speaker 1: all identical to one another UM. So a pilot score
Speaker 1: is the sum of his or her performance across all
Speaker 1: the heats UH and there are also multiple rounds per season,
Speaker 1: so the qualifying round will see twelve pilots compete. After
Speaker 1: the heats are finished, all the points are tallied and
Speaker 1: the eight best UH scores will go on to the semifinals.
Speaker 1: After that, you have another series of three heats for
Speaker 1: a race. The top points top four pilots go on
Speaker 1: to the finals, and then the the one who has
Speaker 1: the best score of all after another three heats is
Speaker 1: named that champion. And apparently apparently this points is them
Speaker 1: is the way that NASCAR does it essentially. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I understand too. I've never actually looked into NASCAR,
Speaker 1: but as I understand that's that's the way they judge
Speaker 1: it as well. Also, like NASCAR, the league hopes to
Speaker 1: eventually attract pilot sponsorships the same way that drivers are
Speaker 1: sponsored in in NASCAR and other racing sports. You have
Speaker 1: like the slim Gym drones. Yeah, the Tide drone exactly.
Speaker 1: And uh, and that's part of why they're so focused
Speaker 1: on creating these these visually dynamic videos of the races
Speaker 1: that will appeal to audiences. Um. Those videos, meanwhile, I've heard,
Speaker 1: are based on the aesthetic of video games, like the
Speaker 1: sorts of things where you've got a frozen level and
Speaker 1: in a desert level, a tropical level, like an urban level.
Speaker 1: And and they've said that that's what they've had in
Speaker 1: mind when they've been designing their courses. Uh. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: like the the League as a company sounds just savvy
Speaker 1: as all get out to If they're able to partner
Speaker 1: with someone like Nintendo and make a rainbow road course
Speaker 1: game over against that's that's that's going to get a
Speaker 1: huge nostalgia uh rabid fan base to to say, like,
Speaker 1: I want to compete in that league. Uh, there's also
Speaker 1: other ones, though the Aerial Sports League is the one,
Speaker 1: and this is what we're gonna get to the combat
Speaker 1: stuff in just a second. Arial Sports League was founded
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven. It was actually a group of
Speaker 1: hobbyists in the Bay Area, including people who were working
Speaker 1: with the MythBusters and um and and folks who worked
Speaker 1: with like the robot battles in the area. And Grant Amahara,
Speaker 1: if you didn't know, was very active in that he
Speaker 1: was a designer for robots for robot battles. So they
Speaker 1: would meet every Friday, and when drones came out, the
Speaker 1: early adopters grabbed drones, and then before too long they said, hey,
Speaker 1: how about we start fighting our drones, and they began
Speaker 1: to do that, and then they started to design drones
Speaker 1: that were better suited for a combat, meaning that it
Speaker 1: was easier to repair them after after they had collided
Speaker 1: with each other twenty feet in the air and crash
Speaker 1: to the ground. UM. So they also hold races similar
Speaker 1: to dr L, but they aren't as um as elaborate
Speaker 1: in scale. Uh so they don't do like the giant
Speaker 1: arena thing with like the smoke and the lasers and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff that DRL does. There's are
Speaker 1: more like on soccer fields with a little obstacle course
Speaker 1: and the racers are using the f PV goggles, but
Speaker 1: the spectators tend to just be watching, right, and they
Speaker 1: point out, they said, that's not very interesting for spectators.
Speaker 1: So we understand that as a business this is not
Speaker 1: really viable because it only caters to the people who
Speaker 1: are actually competing, not to a larger fan base, which
Speaker 1: is why they introduced combat. So there's also these are
Speaker 1: these are distinct from the racing games. They're not combined,
Speaker 1: so it's not like you're racing and then you're trying
Speaker 1: to nudge the other pilot off the course or no, uh,
Speaker 1: it's not like that. Is that what that was? That game?
Speaker 1: It's a motorcycle racing game where you hit people with
Speaker 1: chains and then a bat I think at one point, yeah,
Speaker 1: like death proof or something. Yeah, it's not not Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's none of that is going on. But they do
Speaker 1: have the combat events, and these are usually they take
Speaker 1: place in a large, uh netted in arena, so that
Speaker 1: way no uh, no piece will fly out and hurt
Speaker 1: somebody who's watching. UM. But these are easier for respectators
Speaker 1: to watch and appreciate. And typically a match consists of
Speaker 1: either an objective oriented game like you either pick up
Speaker 1: an object or maybe you already have one attached to
Speaker 1: certain uh drones within the playing area, and then you
Speaker 1: have to move through a course or you have to
Speaker 1: move through like a hoop. The one I saw it
Speaker 1: almost looked like there was a pom pom attached to
Speaker 1: the bottom of a drone and it kept the pilot
Speaker 1: kept clearly trying to move it through a hoop, while
Speaker 1: other drones just slammed into it from all directions. I
Speaker 1: never saw one successfully navigate through a hoop. I saw
Speaker 1: a lot of close calls ending and crashes, or you
Speaker 1: might just have a straight up bash them up between
Speaker 1: two or more opponents. So like the Royal Rumble equivalent
Speaker 1: of drone combat uh and really that's it's the old
Speaker 1: thunder dome philosophy. Two drones enter, one drone leaves, and
Speaker 1: one drone doesn't always leave. Now sometimes sometimes to drones
Speaker 1: enter and nobody goes home, or they go home in pieces. UM.
Speaker 1: The basic drone used in these tends to be the
Speaker 1: game of drones. Heroro Sports airframe. This is what was
Speaker 1: developed by that that group of hobbyists, uh that they
Speaker 1: call essentially indestructible. It's a very resilient airframe design, and
Speaker 1: it's a kit that pilots can then build and even modify,
Speaker 1: so it's it's not like everyone is forced to use
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing. Um And they are for sale.
Speaker 1: You can buy one of these kids. They are not cheap.
Speaker 1: I think they're around for four hundred and four d
Speaker 1: thirty dollars something like that. I'm pretty expensive. I mean
Speaker 1: it's a uh they're they're supposed to be pretty high end.
Speaker 1: So they say it's a great starter for anyone who
Speaker 1: wants to get into the drone combat stuff. Um And
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other organizations, tons of them,
Speaker 1: way too many to name. Uh. Two that I just
Speaker 1: ran across quickly before I saw that there were so
Speaker 1: many that I thought there's just no way I can
Speaker 1: do all these. One was F one f PV Racing League,
Speaker 1: which is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Might be the closest
Speaker 1: one to us. There might be one in Atlanta. I
Speaker 1: didn't see or the drone Racing network that's called q
Speaker 1: A R O P and I don't know how to
Speaker 1: pronounce that because there's no U after the q uh.
Speaker 1: And there are ton more, but these largely grew out
Speaker 1: of hobbyist groups similar to the one I was just
Speaker 1: talking about, So lots of different options. Uh, if you
Speaker 1: are interested in this sort of stuff, you can easily
Speaker 1: use the Googles and search for groups that are remotely
Speaker 1: close to you remote because yeah, you do them. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about some big drone races, all right, So you
Speaker 1: might be thinking, all right, so there are these groups. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's the championship that we talked about earlier, the the
Speaker 1: first national Championship race. Are there any other big ones planned?
Speaker 1: And yes, there are lots. Well, like we mentioned, the
Speaker 1: next National drone Racing competition is going to take play
Speaker 1: or the next Championship is going to take place in
Speaker 1: sixteen Governors Island, New York City, right, Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be streamed live on ESPN three, which is
Speaker 1: one of their online channels, and will also be edited
Speaker 1: down into an hour long broadcast on ESPN Proper, which
Speaker 1: which is which is a pretty huge first step for
Speaker 1: for this as a sport. It could it could be
Speaker 1: the next Texas Holding poker. Sure, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess, depending you know, like like pending on whether
Speaker 1: anyone actually watches it or not. But but in a
Speaker 1: press release, ESPN said drone racing is poised to become
Speaker 1: the next behemoth racing sport alongside NASCAR in Formula one.
Speaker 1: Uh And whether that's hopeful marketing or an earnest prediction,
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell. But I mean, but they're putting
Speaker 1: but they're putting money and effort into this, right, And
Speaker 1: it's not like it's the cho right sure, just what
Speaker 1: dodgeball supposedly esp ao. Um. But yeah, there's also other championships.
Speaker 1: There's I mean, you're thinking national championships sound great, but
Speaker 1: what if I want to be king of the world. Well,
Speaker 1: there's also the World Drone Racing Championships organized by Rotor Sports.
Speaker 1: Those are the same folks who did the National Drone
Speaker 1: Racing Championships in California back in and that's going to
Speaker 1: take place over the course of a week in October
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen in kuwa Iowa Ranch, hawahite E, which
Speaker 1: I have been to and it is lovely. I bet
Speaker 1: ESPN three will be streaming this one live as well. Awesome,
Speaker 1: and there's some pretty serious money. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: big jump from the dollar and prizes that the National
Speaker 1: Championship had in twenty fIF team. There's gonna be a
Speaker 1: total across all races, you know, combined two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollar amount of prizes, so that's amazing. They have lots
Speaker 1: of different styles of of races and competitions that will
Speaker 1: be involved in this event over the course of the week. Um,
Speaker 1: there are different classes of drones that will be raced,
Speaker 1: and they the way they define the classes of drones
Speaker 1: is by airframe size, So there's a class kind of
Speaker 1: kind of Yeah, there's a two fifty class that refers
Speaker 1: to the distance between the diagonal of two different motors,
Speaker 1: and it cannot be greater than two d fifty millimeters.
Speaker 1: So if it's in that range of two or fifty millimeters,
Speaker 1: but bigger than a hundred eighty because otherwise you go
Speaker 1: down to the micro class. Um, then you could race
Speaker 1: in this class of of drone vehicle. H. Then they
Speaker 1: also have other ones like a one thousand millimeter air
Speaker 1: frame class so significantly larger. Uh. They also have a
Speaker 1: fixed wing class. It's so I've not seen what those are,
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of detail about what that
Speaker 1: race is going to entail yet. In fact, they on
Speaker 1: the website they say details will be uh coming out later.
Speaker 1: But there's apparently one where you're going to be quote
Speaker 1: unquote surfing a cliff uh in Hawaii using these fixed wings,
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering what that specifically means, but it sounds
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. Um, surfing a cliff, Yeah, I don't get it.
Speaker 1: I don't either. I'm wondering if it means that you
Speaker 1: have to go down the face of the cliff and
Speaker 1: then pull up, I don't know, or it maybe that
Speaker 1: you're using the updraft coming from the cliff to maintain
Speaker 1: a certain space and do some freestyle tricks. I don't know,
Speaker 1: because there aren't the details for that one yet, but
Speaker 1: it does sound really interesting. So if you want to
Speaker 1: compete in these World Championships, well, you're gonna need to
Speaker 1: earn your spot. You gotta pay your dues, and the
Speaker 1: way you could do that is to win one of
Speaker 1: the associated races is in the thirty participating countries, So
Speaker 1: there are qualifying races that are happening around the world,
Speaker 1: and if you win a qualifier, then you can go
Speaker 1: on to race in this championship. Or if you have
Speaker 1: not had the time to race in one of those
Speaker 1: events around the world, you could go to Hawaii and
Speaker 1: enter the Aloha Cup and that is going to be
Speaker 1: a race that will the results of which will end
Speaker 1: up picking ten qualifiers to be part of the championship race. Um,
Speaker 1: but you will not be able to join any countries team.
Speaker 1: You'll essentially be ah independent lone wolf. So you can't
Speaker 1: be like, I'm on Team America because you didn't win
Speaker 1: one of the American races, you won the Aloha Cup. Uh.
Speaker 1: But I love that. That's that's still giving people the
Speaker 1: opportunity to race in the World Championship. Yeah. There's also
Speaker 1: a World Drone pre the The inaugural one just happened
Speaker 1: in Dubai in March and it boasted a prize pool
Speaker 1: of over a million dollars because Dubai, there were like
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty teams competing and more than two
Speaker 1: thousand spectators on the site and it was it was
Speaker 1: one that the competition was won by a British team
Speaker 1: led by fifteen year old Luke Banister, Uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was not. And then the prize, the first prize was
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars, so so good job, Luke Banister. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet your team was really happy. Yes, wow, two ars.
Speaker 1: This is just making me think of we finally reached
Speaker 1: the world I was promised when I saw the Fred
Speaker 1: Savage Masterpiece of the Wizard. Except instead of video games,
Speaker 1: we're talking about drone racing. And we don't have to
Speaker 1: wear the ninto, no power glove, and and high school
Speaker 1: aged kids can be out there doing this thing. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to wear the power glove
Speaker 1: to pilot a drone, but you might have to wear
Speaker 1: a funny looking hat. What what you're talking about, Joe?
Speaker 1: I want to introduce another type of drone racing that's
Speaker 1: taken place, which is drone racing via mind control pilot.
Speaker 1: What yeah, surely not? Yeah they did it, you know
Speaker 1: why not? Okay? Yeah? So what you know? What if
Speaker 1: piloting a drone with your hands is just not enough,
Speaker 1: so we're going to introduce the element of simulated telepathy.
Speaker 1: We've talked about brain computer interfaces on the show before. BC.
Speaker 1: I s there are lots of ways you can do this,
Speaker 1: but essentially the idea is you want to interface directly
Speaker 1: between your brain and a computer without having to use
Speaker 1: your hands or your eyes or something like that. So
Speaker 1: no keyboard, no mouse, no screen. You just got something
Speaker 1: either on your head or in your head that that
Speaker 1: relays commands or feedback to and from a computer. And
Speaker 1: in this case, it's an on your head situation. I
Speaker 1: am not aware of a situation in which they implanted
Speaker 1: something in the skull, but I'm going to suggest that
Speaker 1: they should. So. In April of the University of Florida
Speaker 1: hosted what appears to be the world's first brain controlled
Speaker 1: drone race. Yeah, Alma matern doing stuff other than getting
Speaker 1: its students tas it doesn't involve electrical impulse. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the drones were trained to interface with pilots neural activity
Speaker 1: through an e G. And that that's electro and cephalography,
Speaker 1: and it means putting electrodes on the outside of your
Speaker 1: scalp to since brain activity through the skull and the skin.
Speaker 1: The drones in question were d j I Phantom drones.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much a standard in the industry. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there were sixteen pilots the race was you will someone
Speaker 1: please read off the full course length ten yards ten
Speaker 1: yards race and about the measurement, right they were They
Speaker 1: weren't racing across ten people's yards. It was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so this is probably you can chalk this up
Speaker 1: to the the e G method. So this works the
Speaker 1: same way a lot of e G experiments work. Meaning
Speaker 1: you can't just put on an e G cap and say, okay,
Speaker 1: drone go. It doesn't know how to go. It doesn't
Speaker 1: know what that means when you think that. So instead,
Speaker 1: what you have to do is train the computer to
Speaker 1: look for certain types of neural activity. Right. So that way, uh,
Speaker 1: it recognizes that when you are are when that neural
Speaker 1: activity is a certain thing, it indicates a certain action exactly.
Speaker 1: So here here's an example. So you put on this
Speaker 1: e G cap, you put some electrodes on your scalp,
Speaker 1: and then you practice thinking about a particular motion, like
Speaker 1: pushing something forward. You concentrate real hard on pushing something forward,
Speaker 1: and then that mental activity gets recorded by the computer
Speaker 1: and then it's sort of average profile is mapped onto
Speaker 1: controller elements for the drone. Yeah, so so you tell
Speaker 1: the computer when I think this, I want you to
Speaker 1: move forward when this brain pattern happens right exactly, and
Speaker 1: so the signal produced when you think really hard about
Speaker 1: pushing forward gets correlated to maybe like a forward stick motion.
Speaker 1: And since the e G has to go through the
Speaker 1: skull and the skin, you might guess that it's a
Speaker 1: lot less sensitive than some other types of BC eyes.
Speaker 1: And this is reflected if you go and watch the
Speaker 1: videos of the University of Florida released from this event.
Speaker 1: Actually I don't know if it was released by the
Speaker 1: university itself, that somebody put out some videos of this event.
Speaker 1: And the drones were they were moving, they really were moving.
Speaker 1: People had the electrodes on, they were thinking, thinking into
Speaker 1: their computers, they're going, and the drones were just kind
Speaker 1: of like inching forward barely. I bet you can chalk
Speaker 1: this up to the lack of sensitivity of e G
Speaker 1: because e G is a very comparatively strong way to
Speaker 1: sense neural activity. If you could instead implant some microelectro
Speaker 1: to rays directly into your motor cortex, then I bet
Speaker 1: you could really make that drone go. I wonder if
Speaker 1: you could sabotage a race just by playing Dave Matthews
Speaker 1: crash into me you just see all them, making people
Speaker 1: imagine they're just all the all the drones just end
Speaker 1: up colliding with one another. Also, and unless you trained
Speaker 1: it to crash when you did, that's a college crowd too,
Speaker 1: so that they'd ultimately I mean, granted it's different college
Speaker 1: crowd than when I went to college, but if if
Speaker 1: you had played that at U g A back when
Speaker 1: I was there, they went, well, at least we've got
Speaker 1: Dave Matthews, I guess. So, I mean that's what the
Speaker 1: college kids like. Huh, that was that was what it
Speaker 1: seemed like pent of my classmates liked. It wasn't what
Speaker 1: I liked, but well anyway, so so yeah, brain controlled
Speaker 1: drone raceist that's the future. Obviously, using hands is so old.
Speaker 1: So with this, this uh, this form of entertainment, this
Speaker 1: form of of competition gaining in popularity, I mean pretty
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Like this was something that I remembered seeing
Speaker 1: some videos of concepts for drone races in the past,
Speaker 1: but it seems like it went from concept to execution
Speaker 1: remarkably quickly, especially to the point where major outlets like
Speaker 1: ESPN are taking notice. We then need to think, how
Speaker 1: do we get people involved in the sport, maybe not
Speaker 1: just as a spectator, but also perhaps even as a pilot. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of different opportunities out there, Uh,
Speaker 1: not all of them requiring you to have cable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a few companies that are starting to offer racing
Speaker 1: drone kits specifically for for racings. Uh. It's largely right
Speaker 1: now through crowdfunding campaigns. But if they're successful, I could
Speaker 1: I could totally see them turning into like long term businesses.
Speaker 1: A lot of them, stressed the d I Y asked
Speaker 1: backed pretty heavily with the consumer providing the construction of
Speaker 1: the drone, but some others are fully assembled. Prices seem
Speaker 1: to range from the like three hundred nine hundred dollar
Speaker 1: sort of thing, um, depending on whether you do most
Speaker 1: of the assembly work yourself, and whether accessories like the
Speaker 1: f PV goggles come along with the package. Right. So, uh,
Speaker 1: if you're doing the f PV racing in particular, I
Speaker 1: mean that that makes sense that the expense is going
Speaker 1: to be a little higher than you're just than your
Speaker 1: average quad copter that you could go out and buy
Speaker 1: at the hobby store, right exactly, because you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you could do a drone race where you just have
Speaker 1: visual contact with the drone the entire time, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't have the same level of of complexity, and you
Speaker 1: can't do things like the crazy obstacles as easily because
Speaker 1: once you know, once the drone gets a distance away,
Speaker 1: you can't judge, oh, do I need to go further
Speaker 1: up in order to get through that hoop? It's too hard, right,
Speaker 1: So the FPV really is what and plus just it
Speaker 1: makes the whole experience more exciting. So if you're really
Speaker 1: interested in this, there are lots of hobbyist groups out there,
Speaker 1: many of what you can find through the various organizations
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, and a lot of them hold events
Speaker 1: that allow people to fly a drone and even fly
Speaker 1: a drone with that FPV headset on and get some
Speaker 1: stick time is what they call it um uh and
Speaker 1: the actual control time where you are in control of
Speaker 1: the drone and you can see what the pilots see.
Speaker 1: You know, you were wearing the headset. The the event
Speaker 1: provides the drone typically, and so you would just go
Speaker 1: and there'd be like uh, Like there're several where they
Speaker 1: have an experience where you can go, you get in
Speaker 1: line when it's your turn, you put on the headset,
Speaker 1: you get the controller, and then you get to fly
Speaker 1: the drone around. And some of them even have like
Speaker 1: timed courses where you can try and set the best
Speaker 1: time of the day and it's an open challenge, and
Speaker 1: after you're done, you can go and get back in
Speaker 1: line and try and beat your time and make sure
Speaker 1: that you're the one who wins at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. Just kind of cool. The idea that this
Speaker 1: is a way to get people involved and interested and
Speaker 1: find out if this is something that they would like
Speaker 1: to spend money and time on and and join that community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean, and it's a fun it's a fun
Speaker 1: sport or experience or hobby, but it's also a terrific
Speaker 1: way to get people interested in mechanics and engineering, programming
Speaker 1: and all kinds of other important stem or steam now
Speaker 1: the kinds of areas. Yeah, the first time I saw Steam,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a type of totally Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the the a is for arts, yeah, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: great because I mean I would argue that arts are
Speaker 1: just as important as those other pieces too, But I mean,
Speaker 1: especially like like design, Like I mean, design is kind
Speaker 1: of a pretty important part of engineering, but yeah, that's ah,
Speaker 1: so that's sort of our overview of drone races now.
Speaker 1: When we were first putting this together, I was initially thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: we can also mention other emerging sports things that have
Speaker 1: been around longer than drone races but are starting to
Speaker 1: finally get some traction in the United States, like a
Speaker 1: E sports or video professional video game competitions, But that
Speaker 1: would require an entire episode all on its own, and
Speaker 1: of course we would have to go into how other
Speaker 1: nations like like South Korea in particular, are well ahead
Speaker 1: of the curve on that kind of thing, and maybe
Speaker 1: we'll do a full episode about that in the future
Speaker 1: as well. But I think we need to devote an
Speaker 1: episode to Cyborg p Fowl writing. I think I really
Speaker 1: think it's interesting and part of the reason why I
Speaker 1: would love to do a professional video game episode like
Speaker 1: the Future of Sports Part two or whatever. Yeah, E Sports,
Speaker 1: I would like to kind of do one, just to
Speaker 1: have the discussion about why do you think drone racing
Speaker 1: is getting a lot more mainstream media attention very early
Speaker 1: on compared to what E sports have had experienced in
Speaker 1: the United States, And I think it's largely because it
Speaker 1: involves a physical thing moving through physical space, and for
Speaker 1: some reason, mainstream media values that higher than moving a
Speaker 1: virtual object through virtual space, even if the skill set
Speaker 1: is remarkably the same. I wonder if it also has
Speaker 1: to do with the perception that the competitors are less
Speaker 1: freaky or creepy. It's it's entirely possible. It's it's well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the stereotypical idea of oh, you're you're good at video games,
Speaker 1: you must be terrible at social interaction or anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything else you're bad at. You're only good at video games.
Speaker 1: We would like to break that stereotype every every day
Speaker 1: we work at that thing. Yeah, so this was a
Speaker 1: fun thing to look into. Again, we didn't realize how
Speaker 1: big a deal it was until we started to really
Speaker 1: do the research. And now I totally want to have
Speaker 1: that experience. I know that I would never be at
Speaker 1: any sort of competitive level, but I would love to
Speaker 1: have the experience of flying one of these drones with
Speaker 1: at fpv uh headset on. I think it would be
Speaker 1: really cool. And if any of you out there have
Speaker 1: had experience with this, I would love to hear your thoughts, like,
Speaker 1: what was it like? Let us know, because I really
Speaker 1: want to hear about it. Uh. You can get in
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