Andreas Baumgartner, associate professor of art, gave a colloquium presentation on first-person view drones April 12 in Stutzman Lecture Hall titled “FPV Drones: A New Creative Medium – Thrills of Building, Racing, mountain surfing and More.”
Andi Baumgartner shows off his drones. Photo by Nicole Centofanti
Baumgartner described his presentation as a “glorified show and tell,” because he was explaining and showing off what he has accomplished while working on the drones.
FPV (first-person view) drones are drones with a camera attached. The camera sends live video to the person flying the drone through a set of goggles worn by the pilot.
Baumgartner said he first got into drones when his brother gave him a toy drone for Christmas four years ago.
“We had the time of our lives flying that thing around the living room,” said Baumgartner. “I said to myself, ‘I got to see what else is out there,’ in terms of what this is. And that lead back to hobby grade toys.”
In his colloquium presentation, he explained his personal journey with drones, including building drones and 3D printing his own drone frames. He spends about 15 minutes a day working on his drones.
Baumgartner also explained practical uses drones have beyond being hobbies or toys. Some examples he gave were defrosting wind turbines, cleaning power lines in China and planting trees in Australia.
During his presentation, he showed video of what he saw while flying different drones in different areas.
In May 2018, Baumgartner was one of the faculty leaders for the Iceland cross-cultural trip, and he brought one of his drones along. During a free day, he met up with Iceland’s best drone flyer, Aron Örn Ívarsson Hall.
While his drones surfed the mountains of Iceland, he captured footage from the attached camera. With the footage he took, he applied edits and put music behind the images, turning it into a cohesive video.
He also discussed collegiate teams for drone racing. Some colleges, he said, even give out scholarships for drone racing, including nearby Tiffin University.
Baumgartner said this concept is something he would be interested in seeing at Bluffton.
Currently, Baumgartner owns about 15 different drones.
Andi Baumgartner demonstrates how the camera on a drone functions. Photo by Nicole Centofanti
