Three-fer Thursday 7/24: Selling a House, Wildfire Relief & A Robotic Dragonfly

Is your week droning on? Fear not! To get over the end-of-the-week-slump, check out these videos of cool ways people are using UAS all over the world.

1) A lot of noise is being made about real estate companies using drones to sell houses. The FAA slapped a bunch of New York City companies with subpoenas to investigate whether or not such use is considered “commercial.”

The truth is, drones are an incredibly useful tool for selling a house. So regardless of what the FAA concludes, the number of agents flying a drone through America’s neighborhoods will only increase.

If you are having trouble believing me, I invite you to watch this video shot by DronePros for a Remax agent in Ontario.

 

2) The wildfires that broke out in central Washington this month have left a very visible path of destruction in their wake. Chelan HD Productions captured the following footage to showcase the devastation in hopes that they could raise some money for the families that lost their homes in the fires.

Carlton Pateros Brewster Fire Devastation 2014 from Chelan HD Productions on Vimeo.

3) Finally, this one isn’t exactly a new video, but it certainly is worth your time if you missed it when it hit the interwebs last spring.

The BionicOpter is the 17.3-inch, smartphone controlled dragonfly drone developed by Festo. BionicOpter flies just like a giant dragonfly, beating its carbon fiber wings 20 times a second.

Unfortunately, this amazing aerial arthropod isn’t available to the mass market. But I did reach out to Festo to see what the future holds for the BionicOpter.

For more of Festo’s animal inspired robotics, check out the BionicKangaroo and AquaJellies… which are amazing (and slightly unsettling) robots that perfectly mimic their real-world counterparts.