There were some nerves for Furman physics professor John Conrad and his students when they sent their DJI Phantom 2 drone into the air for the first time—and that was on a sunny day over the flat, treeless rugby field, for really no reason at all other than seeing if they could. A “leap of faith,” he called it.
That was nothing, however, compared to the adrenaline surge Conrad got during a phone call from Furman Center for Teaching and Learning associate director Mike Winiski after he saw the video of what Conrad’s team had done.
“So I said, let me get this straight: You want me to fly at night in a high-crime neighborhood?” Conrad remembers with a smile from his second-story office in Townes Science Center. “And he said, ‘yeah, I really want to do that.’”
A project in Winiski’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) class had taken a turn for the unexpectedly complicated. They needed help from above.
Read More: http://newspress.furman.edu/2014/08/tracking-lights-2/
Drone Prize 2014 Vote Here: http://woobox.com/jmkpr6/vote/for/4229119
Produced by Taylor de Lench
Drone footage courtesy of John Conrad and Furman University Physics Department
Additional footage courtesy of William Lewis
Graphics by Brian Faulkenberry
Music: 'Dwell' by Tony Anderson
Licensed by TheMusicBed.com