Look – no hands! Use your face to fly a drone

Credit: Bruce, Perron, and Vaughan   ( Simon Fraser University)

Ready-Aim-Fly is a drone project that lets you control your favorite flying toy by making faces .

Researchers at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University have created the system to be as intuitive as possible – insofar as staring at a flying robot is ever “intuitive.”

Here’s how it works: First, hold your UAV at arm’s length and stare at it , trying not to make any facial expressions. Next, turn the drone on its side and choose a “trigger” expression , which will tell the drone when to lift off.

Finally, “aim” the drone by walking backwards the same distance you’d like it to fly, and make another face to decide if the flightpath will be straight or a boomerang round trip.