How cool would it be to be able to watch your child’s every move and know that, not only was he safe, he was not getting into trouble?
One dad in Vermont thought it would be very cool – or warm in this case. You see, Paul Wallich wanted to make darn sure his kid got to the bus stop safely in the mornings but he did not relish the thought of venturing out into the frigid Vermont winter mornings, so he developed a robotic eye in the sky.
Now, when his son heads for the bus stop, he is followed by a remote control helicopter fitted with an old smart phone set on video chat. He created a coin-cell battery powered GPS beacon which he added to his son’s backpack, something the boy carried with him every day.
The copter was able to follow his son almost anywhere and send back video intel. Plus, with the 15 foot distance, the helicopter isn’t obvious to his son or the other kids.
There are some tweaks that Wallich has planned. He wants to add sonar units to help the helicopter navigate around branches or other things that get in the way. He also plans to figure out a way to lengthen the battery life without adding more weight. At the moment the eye in the sky only just makes it to the bus stop and back.
It seems to be that watching his kid is great, but if something actually happened? Mr. Wallich would not be in a position to be of much help – unless of course he was able to add some sort of remote control pepper spray bomb.
What do you think? Is this a great idea or just plan silly?
source: DVice
