If you go to the middle of nowhere in East Africa, go North, and turn right, then drive another couple hours in the blazing heat, you will be where I am. Gonzalo Martinez and myself of Autodesk are capturing some of the most remote geography in Africa using a remote controlled eight bladed Octo-Copter. The photos and video are amazing as are the reaction from local nomadic tribe members when they see the copter fly by and they run to the river to see it and wonder what it is. It was an interesting language barrier experience to try to explain what it was, and what it does and that we can actually see like a bird from the copter. I am pretty sure they are convinced I am some sort of space alien. The Autodesk Octo-Copter is doing very well but heat and rough transport did cause a great deal of extra effort in repairs and adjustments and no way to get to a location to get repair parts as we had to solve the problems right here in the first field site.
Dealing with overheating equipment, tons of bugs of all shapes and sizes including malaria carrying mosquitos, absolutely amazing bird life, venomous scorpions and snakes like the small cobra found yesterday, sand, lack of much if any Internet access or a cell phone signal and only ~106 F. degrees and some humidity. Not getting much sleep with all the travel, work and heat. Living off the grid with solar energy and rain water. And Yes, I am loving it!
Now we have another sunset flight to prepare for as being located on the equator the sunset goes so very fast and the flood of bugs soon. The bugs can be so this it is raining bugs and your computer screen becomes unusable as it is quickly covered in bugs.
Cheers,
Shaan
Was just told by my boss that Autodesk has a company policy to cover a single hump camel as transportation, not a double hump camel as I would have to cover the extra hump charge model..