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Pro drone racing confronts its amateur roots
"The drone racing league is a sport. We are a league. We do an annual season. We have a clear rule system and scoring system," Nick Horbaczewski, founder and CEO of the Drone Racing League (DRL), enthuses in a small business suite located on the second floor of the Circus Circus Casino in Las Vegas. With a deal with ESPN in the bag, his league is poised to bring the sport mainstream, and within moments of our introduction, he's let me know he's serious.
BMW is helping to build the world's fastest racing drone
BMW is working with the Drone Racing League (DRL) to break the record for the world's fastest drone set by the DRL itself last year. BMW will loan its technical expertise and wind tunnel at its Aerodynamic Test Center to help the league break the 165.2 mph Guinness world speed record it set with its DRL RacerX drone. The automaker is also bring a DRL race to its BMW Welt exhibition center and museum in Munich, Germany.
Your gaming skills could earn you a Drone Racing League contract
So you want to be a professional drone racer? Then you should probably download Drone Racing League Simulator from Steam. To coincide with the game's official launch, watchmaker Swatch has announced it's sponsoring tryouts for the 2018 season, where top prize is a spot in the 2018 DRL Allianz World Championship Season and a $75,000 contract. We've seen this type of thing with Gran Turismo before but it'll never not feel kind of Last Starfighter-y.
ESPN's Drone Racing League returns with faster, bigger races
Last year, I asked a simple question: Can drone racing become as big as eSports? While we wait to find out, one of the leading race organizers -- the Drone Racing League -- is making all the right moves this year to make that answer yes. One of the keys to achieving that, the DRL hopes, is the introduction of the Racer3 drone, which will be the standard craft all pilots in the DRL race with. Unsurprisingly, it's more powerful and agile than its predecessor (the Racer2, obviously) and could be the shot in the arm the sport needs to go mainstream. The Racer3 should make races -- which air on ESPN starting June 20th -- even more thrilling, luring more fans (and, by association, lucre) to the game.
Can drone racing become as big as eSports?
Is drone racing the sport of the future? That's certainly what the Drone Racing League, and a growing number of followers, sponsors and event holders seem to think. Taking a page from competitive gaming, quadcopter racing pilots are self organizing into leagues (there's also the Aerial Sports League, and Drone Worlds among others) and growing their competitions into a fully-fledged spectator sport. At least that's the hope.
Oregon State University's ATRIAS robot takes a walk in the park
We've seen Oregon State University's ATRIAS robot prove its mettle in a controlled environment, sure, but what changes when it goes for a stroll in the great outdoors? Perhaps unsurprisingly, not a whole lot. The biped doesn't have a problem going uphill, downhill, maintaining balance when dodgeballs hit it and even handles variations in terrain with aplomb. It doesn't seem to have any issues changing speed, either. Basically, this proves that the ATRIAS doesn't need perfect conditions to operate, which is important because let's face it: the real world is far from perfect.The upside to all of this is that unlike humans, robots don't quite get stage-fright so replicating these actions in front of a crowd at the DARPA Robotics Challenge come June likely won't be an issue.
