Merry Christmas

Question - What do you do with 100 Christmas lights, some old polystyrene packaging and a £20 HubSan Q4 quadcopter?

Answer - Build an obstacle course and fly around it in the dark.

The camera isn't picking it up very well, but in the centre of the circle there is an arch made from polystyrene and cardboard, which I occasionally manage to fly through. In my defence, I should point out that the entire course is only about 2 metres by 2.5 metres, so it's quite difficult to keep the aircraft within the box.

One thing I would recommend if you want to try this yourself, is to use a HubSan X4 controller. This will bind with the Q4 quadcopter and has much bigger sticks than the silly little thumb sticks on the one shipped with the Q4, which gives you a lot more control. I switched part way through making the movie, and, although it took me a little while to get used to the new controller, it is a definite improvement.

If you're wondering how I made the movie, it was done in two takes, with only a tiny bit of editing needed (you can see the pixel fades). I had a few practice runs with the lights on first, then did two 4 minute flights in the dark, which are edited together. The camera is a GoPro Hero4 Session which I'm controlling using my Android phone. The lights came from Maplin last Christmas and are wired in pairs pointing up and down, so, when you pull them apart, they naturally fall into the zig-zag track pattern. My only improvement would be to light up the arch better, as the reflective strips on it aren't working very well and using a MagLight torch to illuminate it didn't really help.

All in all I'm very pleased with the effect. The blue lighting makes it very reminiscent of a scene from Tron.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.