oh
I just watched a dream die hey it's
Patrick I'm here in Clinton Ontario
standing on what is probably normally
used for horse racing but today it's
been turned into a drone racetrack which
is a pretty crazy idea there's a bunch
of guys here with flying robots they are
connected to them through VR goggles
that allow them to see through the
drones camera and they race there's a
lot of crashes get pretty intense I'm
gonna try and race the drone myself and
probably gonna be pretty terrible at it
we're going to talk to some of these
guys and see why they came all the way
out here to the middle of nowhere to
play with robots I'm here with Ryan
who's a drone racer all the way from
Manhattan and we're standing right on
the track yes
the last time we saw Ryan was in the
Bronx New York where he showed us the
basics of FPV drone racing when you're
with somebody in the air it's like Star
Wars now he's here in the big leagues of
rural Ontario to test his skills a drone
racetrack is a fairly new idea yeah this
is a this is probably one of the first
fpv drone tracks and we're standing in
front of a gate drone tracks are 3d
they're not 2d so great up-down
left-right so this this gate is actually
wired up right yeah each each fpv quad
has a little transponder in it and when
you go through a track your time for lap
oh that's crazy so if you go over it or
around it that doesn't count right and
the gates a pretty stressful moment in
the course when you're coming around a
corner really fast you have to go under
it yeah add a little nervous
I'm here with Daniel who just graciously
let me borrow his VR goggles and one of
the really cool things about this is you
got a channel changer on there so you
can throw this on and watch all the
different drones from their perspective
yeah you can watch up to about seven or
eight other video signals at the same
time so while the race is going on you
can click through find the clearest
channel yeah and watch it as if you're
the pilot I noticed some of the signals
would be pretty clear and then the other
ones were like being inside of like a
like a glitchy cartoon or something
which are the racers seeing some of
those that's exactly what they're seeing
yeah you'll be going through and all of
a sudden it's all very blurry for a
second but you just fly through it
knowing that it's going to clear up yeah
and it's just the metalwork in this
venue it's all just bouncing off the
metal so as you move past it clears up I
was also advised to be sitting down yeah
when I which I didn't but I definitely
felt a little bit of like screams oh
yeah feeling kind of pukey for sure it's
even more impressive when you're flying
and then you see someone coming straight
at you and I think you're about to have
a collision and then you realize wait a
minute yeah I'm sitting on the ground
yeah this is like I'm just watching a
robot you catch your breath
yeah it happens my favorite part is
watching a crash yeah it was not so much
fun you have to go inspect the damage
yeah yeah I guess I have no horse in the
race
you just raced yes and once you tell me
what happened how did that go well I
have a lap record yeah which is really
important there's two different styles
to racing so you can go through really
fast as fast as you can go yeah and get
a lap record yeah or you can play it
smart and have a little bit more
endurance right I have not finished a
race yet because you were raised it real
aggressively I thought all right yeah
and that's the fun of it you have to
bang around real fast Lord but then you
kind of run into stuff right you hit one
of those flag poles guys how does it
feel when you when you're Lee crafts
it's upsetting cuz you're done yeah it's
over yeah you know and you always break
a prop that's kind of like when you say
break a product like grow propeller yeah
props are like they're kind of like
these indispensable little things in the
sport you know you run through them I
already ran through 20 right break them
like fingernails I mean there's a lot of
repairing to this little thing we do you
bring like a whole kit of extra parts
when you do this yeah it's sad I got
screwdrivers I have little tiny Clippers
I have fingernail clippers I've hot glue
I've regular glue amazing you gotta make
it happen you gotta stay in the air
you have to expect that during the
course of racing when you crash
something's going to break and that will
be the part you didn't bring with so how
much of this competition is like
troubleshooting and like doing your own
attacks of improvisation yeah absolutely
all of it this is from the dollar store
it's a sandwich container
okay that's a piece of a golf club these
are tow rats
Wow
you came all the way up from Ohio yep
and you're gonna show me how to drone
race yes I'm gonna show you okay
what am i working with here that's a
blatant en lqx fpv it's a good starter
quad yeah anything you want yeah it
doesn't look like I do a lot of damage
no not at all okay cool
oh yeah here we go all right controllers
in your hand oh it's going great super
well are you getting pretty high up yeah
we hit the raft up let's go girl and
right up into the rafters I had no sense
of where I was going at all oh I'm in
someone's hand now all right you
already want to try to get do one more
yeah I wouldn't say I'm good okay yeah
there you go yeah yeah I got a possible
the bare minimum movements okay got over
that thing oh did you crash or you
upside down yeah very much though you
know maybe one day I'll graduate like
you know predator drone yeah we'll talk
about that sponsorship yeah great I love
to ride for you guys professionally I
think I got what it takes we'll see okay
thank you