My 10yo was telling me about that yesterday. The wishbone-looking props on the mothership caught my eye:
I love Mark Rober, and I love content from foreign lands. And of course I love flying. This sort of combines all three.
Very cool! Though seeing that video makes me a little embarrassed for the USA. We were largely pitched drone delivery as a way to make our Taco Bell deliveries more efficient, while they're using it in Uganda for critical blood and healthcare logistics.
I'm usually the first one to crap on drone delivery sensationalism, but this actually shows some new ideas that have a lot of merit. Not the same old crap that will magically work this time. I'm impressed by this.
Zipline is a US-headquartered company, why is that embarrassing to the US? I think it's awesome. Nauga, just around the corner
The fact that the company is American is wonderful. But... Every piece of marketing I've seen for drone delivery in the USA centers around our need for instant gratification. Is my life really going to be changed by having my 4000 calorie Taco Bell order DoorDashed to me faster than a driver could get it there? Or getting my same-day delivery with amazon 1 hour earlier? It makes no difference. Meanwhile people in Uganda use the technology to dramatically improve the standard of care within hospitals, with noteworthy accomplishments like an 88% reduction in maternal mortality rates (IIRC). It just makes me a little embarrassed to think about the drastic differences in our use cases for the same technology. We use it so we can move around less or get something incrementally faster to feed our consumer culture, they're using it to save lives. Cool technology regardless.
I guess I don't see anything terribly embarrassing about an international humanitarian mission using domestic technology. I think it's a really good use of the technology and there is some pride in the fact that it's a US company doing it. Would it embarrass you if they used cars, just like "we" use to deliver pizza? Nauga, who's gotta eat
Quite the opposite. I think their use case is AMAZING and I'm glad they're using it. I just wish we, domestically, had some more inspiring use cases for it rather than just dropping a $5 KFC Bucket on my doorstep.
Hmmm....maybe we'll get lucky and there will be some kind of domestic disaster so that we can put it to use. Nauga, with tongue firmly in cheek
People on a pilot forum are embarrassed that they live in a country where pretty much anybody can afford to have fried chicken delivered?
Well, most of our hospitals can actually afford to keep life-saving stuff in stock, so their problems are different than ours. I see this sort of like I see racing cars and planes. If people are willing to spend money to develop new innovations, I'm just happy they chose to do it voluntarily, and hopefully it will end up being used for good, instead of delivering grenades...
The U.S. could use these drones in the medical courier service for transportation of documents, biological specimens, organs, & pharmaceutical supplies between clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies.
There are lots of poor mountainous nations with frequently disrupted infrastructure that could use technology like this. I think Zipline has a bright future indeed. I would be overjoyed if the desire for instant gratification in Western nations funded the development of life-saving technology for poorer ones. Moreover, places that specialize in home delivery like Amazon are here to stay. It is a good idea to make them more efficient where we can, and drones are more efficient than ground transport for a variety of reasons.
