Man arms DIY drone with paintball handgun and shoots human cardboard cutouts

Milo Danger says:

Drones aren't just for the military and government anymore - regular citizens and makers are embracing drones at an amazing rate and creating some very interesting uses for this rapidly developing technology. Milo Danger designs, builds, flies & shoots an armed drone to determine just how safe - or dangerous - these machines are in the hands of a novice flyer.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

MORE: DIY • DRONES • makers

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http://twitter.com/openfly ǝɔʎoſ ʇʇɐW

man paintball is gonna be awesome in a few years.
Antinous / Moderator

Well, now we know how to incapacitate the surveillance drones. Cheers!
nixiebunny

You could put this gizmo to good use on all those surveillance cameras mounted on poles in every major city.
- benher
  
  Gears… turning… like turbines…
robuluz

Man arms DIY drone with paintball handgun and shoots human cardboard cutouts

Pure awesome ensues.
jackrabbitslim

I have a thought. Combine drones with that DIY auto turret tech and you could have fully autonomous hunter-killer drones.

All of the lethality and none of the remorse! Hooray!
http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski

I would SO use this to shoot cats.
- http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood
  
  I would mount a paintball gun to this and send it after you. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/jun/05/catcopter-dutch-artist-amsterdam-video
- Over the River
  
  Totally in violation of the Catneva Convention
- benher
  
  Oh now, phrases like that just hurt my feelings.
http://twitter.com/HubrisSonic HubrisSonic

what the hell is wrong with people?
- robuluz
  
  Lack of armed civilian surveillance drones.
Ivan Dann

Not a drone. Under the strictest definition of drone, it isn’t, since it is flown under the control of a human operator.
- teapot
  
  Where do you get that definition from? You are thinking of “automated drone” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/drone
  
  Guys fly and control the ones over Afghanistan you know…
  
  PS this guy rulez. Love the “Sports” hat!
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/Marooned2/from/mbard Ceronomus

Not at all. Many US Military drones have a human operator. They just aren’t INSIDE the thing.

A “Drone” in this case is an unmanned aerial vehicle.This is most certainly, a drone.
Boundegar

It would be cool if you could give it real ammo. And fully autonomous AI. And the ability to self-replicate.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Mantrid.
- sudoLoki
  
  Nice try Skynet.
Mister44

That looks like so much damn fun.
dayhat

memo to self – look up before leaving house and don’t leave home without net gun:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-A-Net-Gun/
Jay Converse

It hovers, so it’s slow, you could take it out real quick with one shotgun blast.
- ApostateGland
  
  Someone’s been playing a little Black Ops II, I see.
jimh

Don’t try this at home… wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more…
Glen Blank

People have been flying small remotely-piloted aircraft – fixed wing props and jets and a wide variety of standard and exotic rotorcraft – for many, many years.

Ah, but now that they’re “DIY Drones” (oooh!) they’re an exciting! new! technology – no longer JUST for military and government! – being “rapidly embraced!” (Careful there – it’s all fun and games until someone pokes an eye out.)

How very.
- teapot
  
  Could those be built using instructions from the internet and shoot targets reliably?
  
  Then stop being a killjoy.
- http://twitter.com/GideonTJones Gideon Jones
  
  It’s the word ‘drone’. It conjures up all sorts of scary futuristic dystopian images.
- GlyphGryph
  
  I think the issue is that almost all classic RC aircraft need to be directly controlled in some way, These copters, in my experience, tend to be a step removed from that, interpreting commands into a sequence of events with the correct result.
  
  Essentially, they aren’t piloted, they are just directed, which I think is the biggest difference in most people’s minds – an unskilled person can still easily use one of these.
  
  I enjoy flying my classic ‘copter, but it’s very different experience.
  
  OR maybe that’s not it at all, I don’t know.
- jsd
  
  Hipster. I’ve been RC flying for years, and the mainstreaming/technological progression of the hobby is good for both long time hobbyists and new fans. Honestly, if people at local RC fields and meetings weren’t so damn insular and shut off to beginners, I really think the hobby would be much more popular today.
- Sean Nelson
  
  Can anyone walk up to one of those fixed wing RCs and just take off without hours or days of practice? These “DIY Drones” are a lot more stable than the RC craft you mention, especially for a beginner. Having an on-board computer that provides a layer of abstraction from the technical details of flight gives these devices much wider appeal.
- benher
  
  “How very.” Sorry I know you’re trying to be serious, but this made me laugh so hard I snorted drones out of my drones.
mccrum

Imagine the possibilities of a drone made from 3D printer materials shooting a gun made from 3D printed materials at targets made from 3D printed materials…
- jimh
  
  Can it still somehow be steampunk, though?
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/65CSAR3QATRNKJW4NYNB2BESZE JohnQPublic
    
    You could put it on Kickstarter and market it through FB and Twitter.
  - mccrum
    
    Sure, just like on etsy we’ll hot glue some brass gears on it.
    - Jerril
      
      Just glue some gears on it, and call it steammmpunk
      
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA
xzzy

I would have had more fun if it was more of a “tech geeks laughing and being morons” type video than a “voice filtered conspiracy theorist” type video.

It makes it a lot harder to enjoy the accomplishment. :(
eldritch

Anything that can carry a paintball marker can carry a live firearm.

With a drum magazine, even a 9mm pistol could carry enough ammunition on one of these to turn into a very big danger. One more way to die at the hands of an idiot or a malcontent…
- SamSam
  
  No. The mass of real ammo and the recoil are both far greater with a real gun. The recoil alone would probably knock this thing off course or crash it, and would certainly make the aim far wilder even on the first shot.
  
  That’s not to say that you couldn’t build a copter that was strong enough to stay relatively stable (or quickly get back on course) with a real firearm, but paintball != real gun.
- Preston Sturges
  
  Maybe it should be able to fire a volley of small estes rockets, each one tipped with an ounce of C4
SoItBegins

This is scary as shit.
http://www.markcrummett.com crummett

Wouldn’t the recoil from a real gun knock this thing a-over-t? Also, wouldn’t a real gun & ammo weight a lot more than a paintball rig? Mythbusters wants to know!
- Punchcard
  
  It is harder to calculate the recoil, but I worked out the math on the difference in energy earlier:
  Paintball gun: 92 m/s firing .5 g (42 cal) paintball
  9mm: 400 m/s firing an 8 g bullet
  The difference is a couple hundred times the energy discharge. That drone (on the scale a hobbyest might reasonable build) firing a real 9mm would easily blow itself out of the sky.
  - spacedmonkey
    
    It’s not hard to calculate the recoil. According to google, a paintball actually masses ~3g, so the total recoil should be on the order of ten times as much for a 9mm.
    - Peter James
      
      I think he was using “airsoft” sized paintballs (11mm/.43 cal, I think he said in the video), as opposed to “traditional” paintballs (.68 cal I think? it’s been a while). I think that the 11mm’s are around .75g http://www.mcarterbrown.com/forums/ask-experts/70868-quick-question-whats-weight-43-cal-paintball.html and I’m guessing the ~3g you found was for the larger size.
      - Punchcard
        
        Beat me to it. Yeah, you have the sizes correct though the value I found was the .5 g I listed.
  - Thomas Schmidt
    
    Not to worry. There are clever ways of dealing with recoil. Some of them would even improve the accuracy.
  - http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul
    
    The shock may damage it, but those multi-rotor copters seem to be able to recover pretty handily from anything that doesn’t shut them down.
    
    For proof of concept, it really needs only to get in place to fire once to make the point that remote killing and assassination is now within the reach of a DIY hobbyist club.
    
    Though even older RC could position an explosive, this really is an impressive and chilling demo of what we all knew was coming eventually.
Gerald Mander

I want to know what the range is. I assume it uses a standard-issue RC controller?
- http://twitter.com/bradgall Brad Gall
  
  Standard transmitter will get you about 500 meters. Upgraded 2.4Ghz will get you about 1k depending on signal interference. If you get a HAM license and a UHF transmitter you can get a couple of Kilometers. The real issue is battery life, you’re only looking at about 20 minutes on a standard multi-rotor.
  - nixiebunny
    
    If your goal is to shoot someone, the ham license isn’t necessary.
    - Sean Nelson
      
      It’d be a shame to evade the police only to get nabbed by the black swarming FCC vans
Sanjaya Kumar

“FPS Russia” (actually, a dude in Georgia, USA with a fake accent) demos a quadrotor with a machine-gun. Entertaining to watch, although I couldn’t tell how much of it is fake.

http://youtu.be/SNPJMk2fgJU
happosai

Now one has to wonder how long until dyi drones get banned…
Jonbly Herbert

Now let’s see some uncut video… sure he gets some hits eventually on stationary targets, but how long did that actually take?
roland84

Well, I think that the problem with real guns is recoil, but I think that it can carry a blu ray-diode laser to fry some eyes…
Erik Sayle

Bet if ya put a rifle in the forward mass would mean less recoil and keep it more balanced and aim better. Ooops.
I bet alongside this innovation, in the USA, will be police drones and all sorts of radar and and identification systems.OTOH, in 3rd world countries, it may be a free for all.
http://www.facebook.com/CarlJNixon Carl Nixon

I can see a new form of Robot War type competitions here, where each contestant has to hunt down and paint ball the other contestant.

There could even be divisions for human driven and AI driven drones.
peregrinus

OK ok, the hunter killer stuff is obvious. And the self-replicating bit – even my young kids ask is it hard for robots to be blown up, re-assemble and replicate. Us adults scary? Wait for the kidz to grow up thinking that this isn’t even strange.

But! Think of the side-angles! Imagine the benefits to the graffiti community! 10 of these and you can have incredible murals in impossible places! Yay! Wait, no – boo!

Fruit-pickers, fear for your jobs. Window cleaners, you’ve had it. Painters and decorators, time’s up.

I’m going to have one sitting on a charger near my motorbike. When a thief tries to nab it, the thing’s gonna follow them and have fun!

The important thing here – it’s a marker in the hyper-speed development stemming from years of research, yielding across the board all sorts of funky things.

Except, of course, we will also have Skynet to deal with. The bell of inevitability rings with doom.

Bagsy be Arnie.
DreadJester

Hummm, Milo Danger sounds a whole lot like Jessie Ventura…. It’s not so much the sound of the voice but the accent and speech patterns. Also seems like something right up his ally to do.
bkad

Why the mask and the voice disguise? Is any of this illegal? My US-raised intuition is “nothing in that video breaks the law”. The narrator even makes a point of reminding people that these are not things you should do at home.
- bkad
  
  But maybe they aren’t in the USA.
- Sean Nelson
  
  Imagine someone replicated this guy’s design with live ammo and killed someone. At the very least, they may face some stressful scrutiny. The voice changer and mask probably won’t protect them from that, but if it makes them feel better. . .
Chris Merkel

Not an original idea – credit goes to Johnny Knoxville: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mJKQQq0eu8
Over the River

His video again proves having the ability to make cool things does not translate into having the ability to make a cool video about it.
orwell

a wookie can distract a drone long enough for it to be made inoperable…

good against cardboard cutouts is one thing, but good against the living?
http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

Well, OK as far as it goes. But all it shows is a bunch of targets hit by paint. What if there’d been only one target? How many shots were taken – the whole bowl-load? I’m getting no sense that he hit anything at all he was actually aiming at.
Brainspore

That’s no way to assassinate someone with a hover-drone! A professional would have flew up to their victim’s non-bulletproof window, released a couple of poisonous space-centipedes through a carefully cut hole while the victim slept, waited around for the plot to fail, then allowed the drone to carry a Jedi Knight straight back to the attempted assassin for no good reason whatsoever. (God, I hate George Lucas sometimes.)
Glippiglop

A gun would be unnecessary for most cases unless the target was known to always be indoors. In fact the gun is undesirable because you would have to get reasonably close to the target and they would see/hear you coming and time is needed to line up a shot.

I think the ideal payload for a home made device like this would be a large incendiary device (e.g. a big petrol bomb). Just hover high above the target and drop the payload. This way, accurate targeting is less of a concern (lots of splash damage). The drone can operate at much greater distance and be very hard to detect.The danger is that it would be almost too easy to make, requiring minimal mods to the existing drone design to function effectively. If you had them, I’d think dropping grenades would be feasible too.
Alex Schneider

I’ve identified the masked man. It’s Lorne Michaels. Who else could produce a 4 minute video with about 15 seconds worth watching.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Peter Jackson.