My New Drone

On Saturday, January 12, 2019, I bought a drone. I’d been thinking about it for years, but I could never decide on one that had what I wanted without costing more than I wanted to pay. I guess I also felt a bit odd paying so much for what is essentially a toy, but I had some Christmas cash earmarked for a toy, so I bought the Tello drone at Best Buy.

Actually I bought the Tello Boost Combo, which includes 3 batteries and a charger, for $150. It does not come with a controller, and the controller that is made for it (DJI GameSir T1d) is not sold at Best Buy, so I ordered it from DJI. It should arrive today (Wednesday, January 16) and I’m eager to try it out.

I started by flying it inside as this little 3 oz drone can’t handle wind very well. I had many crashes as I gained experience. T also got experience with programming it. That’s right, it can be programmed using Scratch. One mishap with that damaged a house plant (for which I’m very sorry Martha).

Eventually, I got to flying it in my backyard. There was almost no wind, and I flew it up about 10 meters to get a nice view over my house.

Later, I decided there was a perfectly good way to do that without having to endure the cold.

I did have a mishap due to wind and other factors that got the drone stuck high in a tree. I spent some time and no small amount of effort constructing a very long pole to knock it down. 3 of the 4 propellors had fallen off, and I count myself lucky that I was able to recover them all (though I do have spares). No damage to the drone; it’s still working fine.

There is a setting to allow it to fly higher than 10 meters, but for now, that’s high enough. Sometime in a large open field and with no wind, I’ll try going higher. It’s also currently in slow mode, which apparently tops out at 3 m/s, but when I get to an open field, I’ll open it up in fast mode which is should get it up to 8 m/s.

That’s all for now. When I have more to post, I’ll probably turn this single page into a blog.