In this blog article we have already announced the top three winners of the second HoverGames contest. In addition, we are excited to announce four special award winners together with our key partners Auterion , Dronecode Foundation , Arm and Flite Test.
Together with our partners we’re driving a vibrant open source ecosystem using PX4 Flight stack for Drones and Rovers and helping to spread the word about the complete suite of tools supporting mobile robotics management.
DroneCode, a Linux foundation project, welcomes developers to join in their community and work together on defining the standards of the future. Auterion’s pioneering software platforms helps make autonomous systems trusted, reliable and connected to enterprise workflows. And just like Arm, they provide technical support and crucial hardware expertise to HoverGames participants. The team from Flite Test is known for their fantastic videos and fun, and sometimes weird flying objects. We have worked with them in the past and created some videos for HoverGames.
We want to thank our partners for their great cooperation and are very excited to announce four special award winners with them. So without further ado, let's take a look at the winning projects.
During the pandemic, non-contact delivery became vital in order to deliver mail, packages, food and even medicine. This was especially true for high-risk groups and first responders. It became a necessary way of working to avoid risk of infection.
Andrew from Team SavageCabbage developed a Smart Scan Delivery drone for contactless delivery. Using the NavQ i.MX 8M Mini Vision development board, he developed a QR scan app that allows handoff of the package being delivered.
In addition to contributing code back to the main PX4 public software repository, Andrew did a great job helping other participants by writing tutorials and posting videos on YouTube.
Andrew’s Smart Scan Delivery Drone makes great use of ROS2, and he even goes the extra mile of contributing a “pull request” to PX4. It's great to see such commitment.
Beat Küng, Auterion
As the title of the project already suggests: @ckung0400 really created a multifunctional drone that can be used in multiple ways to help others. From helping first responders in diverting traffic and carrying out supply drop missions, to becoming an entertainer – the author put no limits on their creativity and wrote a very detailed documentation outlining the many problems faced while working on the project. The resilience and persistence is inspiring.
The project Multifunctional Community Helper Drone even dispenses masks to people that need them, shows the flexibility and creative use of all the components available on the HoverGames kit.
The Dronecode Foundation is happy to award the project by @ckung0400 the "Drone Coder" award for its multi-purpose, can-do-it-all resourcefulness and creativity.
Ramon Roche, Dronecode Foundation
Team Batcopter focuses on supporting the study of bats, who have unfortunately received lots of negative attention during the pandemic and were identified as carriers and potential sources of SARS-CoV-2.
With the objective to shed light on bat research, the team developed a solution to help find and track radio-tagged bats. After completing the drone assembly, the team was able to use the system to provide clear line of sight tracking which greatly accelerates the ground search when researchers are trying to locate the bat roosts.
The Batcopter team has clearly put a lot of great work into this project and has successfully demonstrated how technology, such as drones, can be used to empower researchers and conservationists alike. I also really appreciated that this team has put a lot of effort in testing both with SITL simulation and with the physical device in the field and has gone all the way to demonstrate the algorithm in action on real field data. Outstanding!
Alessandro Grande, Arm
Flite Test awarded Andrei Florian’s CovidTestDrone submission the best media project, which enables self-administered Covid-19 tests to be delivered within minutes to patient homes via drone delivery. We have been impressed by Florian’s professional documentation and outstanding video and photo material of his HoverGames experience.
CovidTestDrone had not only the best VIDEO presentation, but also had the most FLITE TEST way of attacking a problem. We have multiple layers to our company: video content, our store offerings, our stem curriculum and our community. Just like Andrei, Flite Test's vision is to offer our community, and anyone who wants to be a part of that community, a simple activity, cost effective product solution and a memorable way to connect and make memories with people through aviation and common activities!
Flite Test team
HoverGames 3 is coming! Stay tuned for exciting new Edge Compute and leading edge experimental hardware, vibrant partners, as well as the opportunity to help each other and work together. This time it will be more of a collaboration than a contest!
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Iain Galloway, P.Eng., holds an Electrical Engineering Degree from University of New Brunswick, Canada, and has more than 25 years hands on experience as an electronics embedded design and field support engineer. You can connect with Iain on Twitter at @iafgalloway.
