The Picture of the Century... Nature defeats Technology

https://lemmy.world/post/34079614

Reminds me of Xkcd.com/1842

You’re right, it’s spot on ahah

Anti-Drone Eagles

Anti-Drone Eagles

xkcd
There is always an XKCD for everything dear god
I used to be a drone hunter like you, but then I took a rotor blade to a knee
I hope that doesn’t hurt to do. it’s cool as hell to see but I’m unaware of how many rotor blade impacts a hollow bird bone can take
If I remember correctly the strength of these is quite low. They just spin really fast. They cannot even break skin and give you a cut afaik.
that’s good. I’m glad the birb isn’t at risk while killing the robit
Birb v robit, I love it. Should be a tv series title or a comic.
Until it becomes an arms race, blades will be made of lightweight metals that are super thin to save weight and therefore sharp, and motors be built with more torque.
Nearly every consumer drone uses plastic blades and every modern one like the whole DJI lineup uses the folding ones which hurt much less as they can tilt back when hitting something.
The Mavic series has folding blades. But the Phantom series pictured has rigid blades that are stiff enough they’ll fuck up flesh.
They can cut the shit out of you. They won’t sever a finger or anything with the stock props (some aftermarket carbon fiber stuff might though), but they’ll fuck up flesh.
The mythbusters tested this a while ago so things might have changed but even their heavy duty camera drone with carbon fiber could not go through bones if I remember correctly. Most drones will not seriously cut you or even break skin. The one in the picture definitely will not.

A phantom will absolutely break skin. I flew one for years.

Lots of newer drones like the Mavic series have folding props that won’t break skin, but those fixed-blade props were like getting hit with a weed-whacker.

Just looked up the episode (2015, Ep8).

They’re investigating whether it would be deadly by cutting through your neck. Drone tech has also changed significantly in the last decade. They literally have trouble flying straight and level and hitting the neck of their dummy. But their main problem is the drone hits something and falls away. They put the same smaller prop on a stick and saw into a plucked chicken. Their bigger one did actually slice the neck open before falling away.

Modern drones have much more powerful motors. Do not randomly assume they will not cut you, especially if you grab them.

This a dumb argument in general

It would fucking hurt like hell to say the least and the bird doesnt deserve that

Well birds are robots, so prolly a lot.
Birds are real and this isn’t reddit
How much are the NASA _LIE_ntists paying you to say that?
Then why are you losing?
This plastic bomber can’t really hurt much.
Who shot the photo?
There was a second eagle for taking a picture of his bro
Technology.
But who invented technology? Eagles.
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez… (My required reaction when I spot a reddit mention).
Most of the users were cool though and I miss some of them.
Bird: FUCK THIS SHIT IN PARTICULAR!
I can literally hear the eagle saying fuck off cunt
Next step, train eagles to drop bombs on Russians.
So the Russians can shoot at the birds too? No, that’s a very cruel idea, let’s stick with drones.
how can Russians shoot at birds when they aren’t real?
Ah yes, birds are government drones I forgot, my mistake.

what are you talking about?

Russians don’t exist. they’re a myth that the west uses to scare the populace into funding the military with more money.

Haha right, almost forgot what instance I was on.
I’m envisioning an eagle shaped locomotive, send help
Is that a wedge-tailed eagle? Those birds are huge.
Golden Eagle I think

It’s a DJI Phantom, made entirely of plastic - the battery has about 50% of the weight of the drone, the weight should add to about 1400g, the motors are probably 2312 with 900-ish Kv (it’s like the HP of a car), stock propellers are about 10 inch in diameter - that would give it roughly 2.5 times more power than weight, so a maximum lift off weight of about 4000g (a little less than 4 lbs). Maximum speed is, according to the internet, 45 mph.

For clearance: my self-built drone with a carbon fiber frame has 1200 grams (with battery), motors are 2207 with 1980Kv and propellers are 5 inch - a quarter of the size. I calculated about 12 times power to weight, making it able to lift off with up to 12 kg or 20 pounds. I think the maximum speed should be around 80 mph.

Yeah, the eagle probably destroyed it without getting hurt.

What resources are reputable to look into custom drone building? That sounds like a cool hobby for my teenage sons and I

Definitely Joshua Bardwell on YouTube! He even has a website www.fpvknowitall.com where he even has blueprints of builds and a lot of info! Reddit r/diydrones is very helpful, as well r/tinywhoops (small drones) and r/fpv (I posted my soldering there and was corrected multiple times.

I’m deep into FPV where you fly with goggles, so I’m no expert in programming, but I’ve seen quite some posts about fully automated drones there!

THE ULTIMATE FPV SHOPPING LIST | JOSHUA BARDWELL - FPV-KNOW-IT-All

Site Updates May 29, 2025 - The LiPo Chargers page has been completely updated. The Ultimate FPV Shopping List Finding the right parts is hard. I’ve found the stuff that works.

FPV Know-It-All - Joshua Bardwell
Thank you so much for the resources, I’ll be going down the rabbit hole tomorrow and this weekend, my boys are going to be really excited, you made my day.
send your blueprints to Ukraine and watch your intellectual newborn become the bane of the autocratic world
I feel like you just wanted to tell people about your drone.
Weeeellll originally no, but I figured that showing a little more knowledge on this topic would make me sound a little more competent.
The animal vs robot war will be epic.