RCQC1 Quadcopter

Described as “Unbranded RCQC1 4-Channel, 6 Axis Gyro White Quadcopter With 2MP HD Camera”, this diminutive gadget actually comes with the name Velleman stuck all over it.

I’m testing it out with a view to using it to jazz up some clients’ websites with aerial photographs. I’d hoped to find some pictures online of the kind of results the “2MP HD Camera” could achieve but found none. Here then, are some test photos from the RCQC1

I am assuming that with practice I can hold the copter steady enough in flight to take a non-blurry picture.

I’ve also published a couple of videos here

This video flying quadcopter is described on it’s box as X5C-1 and is rebranded by various manufacturers.

Billy Boxing

Filmed at the SW11 Festival 2015, local charity Carney’s Community held a boxing try out session.
My son Billy, aged 7, went crazy!

More about Carney’s here: http://carneyscommunity.org/

Resisting Metrification

3 things that British people will always use Imperial measurements for:

Beer & Milk (Pints)
Fuel efficiency of cars (Miles per Gallon)
Waists and Busts (Inches)

Canal Boat Festival

Canalway Cavalcade is a distinctive waterways boaters’ gathering that has been taking place at Little Venice since 1983

Making use of non-traditional building materials

As well as boating activities, there was Morris dancing, a tasty selection of food stalls, a real-ale bar, little shops selling the weird and the wonderful and most of all a lovely picturesque view of the many beautiful narrow boats that came and joined us for this special weekend

Strange Statue

Bells

“Doctor, I need psychiatric help! I keep thinking I’m a bell!”

“Take two aspirin and if you’re not better in the morning give me a ring.”

Yes, we’ve taken up bell ringing. Currently in the painful learning everything from scratch stage..

Many thanks to the bell ringers at St Mary’s Church Battersea for their patience and help!

Mad Amusement Arcade

The evening standard reported that inventor Tim Hunkin, best known for the Channel Four television series The Secret Life of Machines has created an amusement arcade of machines made from parts such as windscreen wiper motors amd wok lids and it opens in Holborn, Central London from 11th February 2015.

Tim has filled the former art gallert with 16 “mad” coin-operated machines, each providing a bizarre or humerous mini-adventure. In Microbreak, users are taken on a three-minute package holiday while never leaving an armchair. In Test Your Nerve, participants have to put their hand close to the jaws of a red-eyed dog. Tokens to operate the machines can be bought at the arcade for as little as £1.

Mr Hunkin was quoted aas saying he felt “a missionary zeal to reinvent amusement arcades”. He already has one, the Under the Pier Show in Southwold, Suffolk. Hunkin’s “Under the Pier Show” at Southwold Pier, England is a penny arcade featuring a number of humorous, coin-operated machines of his creation. Attractions include the “Autofrisk” (a device that simulates the experience of being frisked by multiple, inflated rubber gloves), the “Bathyscape” (a device that simulates a brief submarine adventure) and a somewhat rude sculptural clock.

Novelty Automation is at 1 Princeton Street and opens Wed-Sat 11am-6pm