‘Game of Drones’: The Sports League That Could Become the NFL of Drone Fighting

(Source: observer.com)  

2014 was the year that drones found their way into the mainstream as tools for photographers, police officers and even badly-behaved brands. So what’s next on the horizon for drones?

Making them fight.

Game of Drones founder Marque Cornblatt, a robot builder and creator of the Aerial Sports League, bills his company as the “bad boys” of the drone biz. He believes that not only are drones going to be everywhere soon, but that his company is going to be the premier label for drone sports, drone television, drone combat and all other drone media.

Mr. Cornblatt’s vision is only a few years in the making, and it started with a handful of drones, a shotgun, a Kickstarter campaign, and Flight Club.

The First Rule of Flight Club

Three or four years ago, Mr. Cornblatt and his friends were in a barn drinking beers and flying drones around when someone gets the idea to make them fight—whoever has the drone that hits ground the most loses. They started meeting on Friday nights in that same barn to send drones crashing into each other, mounting weapons, nets and other gladiatorial flourishes. What will no doubt someday be referred to as “the earliest set of drone fighting rules” was drafted and Flight Club was born.

But bringing expensive drones along just to destroy them means that makers and technicians showing up to Flight Club needed to make drones cheaper and stronger—if not just to save some money. The remote-control gladiators were bringing in drones made with laser-cut cardboard, spare parts from Home Depot, 3D printed pieces, carbon fiber, and anything else that would save them the cost of having to spend the next week on an expensive rebuild.

Mr. Cornblatt and his business partner built a workshop for better drones and started playing with military-grade, bulletproof materials. When the workshop grew into a warehouse and it came time to build a business, Game of Drones was born on Kickstarter.

Small drones were fickle and delicate only a few years ago, but Game of Drones had footage of their airframes landing on water and smashing into light poles. In one clip, they blow one of their own drones out of the sky with a shotgun—a drone that Mr. Cornblatt still flies into battle today.

Continue Reading at observer.com…