how to introduce the hobby without sounding crazy

[lone cosmos]

Hello there, I recently got asked what where my hobbies, and when I said I am in the rc drone hobby, since people envision drones has either big menacing military machines or a toy you give your 4yo before he stabs it with his pen until it's broken, I did look like a crazy person, so I was wondering what would you say if somebody asked you what where your hobbies (let's assume you're only hobby is this one) and you don't have a drone on hand to explain them why you aren't actually that crazy

[covert oriole]

I feel this one.

there's only two extremes.

either people give you the weird look or have too high expectations.

like no I don't spy on people.

but I also don't build them from scratch and do big hacker guy drone swarm projects.

[latent river]

I usually tell people I build and fly drones for fun, nobody's said anything like that about it

[fringe temple]

Even if you don't race, say you fly racing drones

[covert oriole]

the infantilisation of the micro FPV hobby is...

well, it's quite annoying.

[lone cosmos]

yeah that's a pretty good one actually, it just sounds really dumb in french, but less dumb then saying you fly tiny drones for fun with vr goggles while standing alone in the middle of a park

[lone cosmos]

either infantilization or people being straight out scared of it, even if it is one of the safest hobbies

[worldly tinsel]

very this, otherwise their mind just clicks into "weirdo overgrown child with a spying drone"

"design racing drones" boosts the cool factor by 100%. Get people asking if that's your engineering careerpath or something

[lone cosmos]

Yeah, but then when they ask you to show it to then and you either show a garbage looking frame, or you ramble for half an hour about the vibration characteristics of the frame, it probably looses a bit of the cool factor

[worldly tinsel]

it helps when the drone in question is a 15" (you have no obligation to lead them to the realization that said drone is built with bare minimum chinese parts that could catch fire at any minute)

also helps to just give them a pair of goggles and fly it

[lone cosmos]

Or yeah fair enough, but if you stay in a more traditional mini quad form factor, it isn't really the same, it doesn't have the same "mad scientist" effect

[worldly tinsel]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/956724609812689007.gif?size=240&quality=lossless

lol true

[worldly tinsel]

@visual pine showed a friend his quad once. It only took one freestyle/exploration flight (with goggles) to take them from "i kinda hate drones" to "that was awesome"

[lone cosmos]

Also, how does a Chinese special 15" quad flies ?

[worldly tinsel]

that's a really good question (I need to finish tuning it and swap its FlySky for ELRS)

[lone cosmos]

You either love drones, or you didn't try it yet

[worldly tinsel]

accurate

[lone cosmos]

You still didn't finish?

[lone cosmos]

Problem is, what is you only have one goggle ?

[worldly tinsel]

I mean, it flies fairly stably currently but I haven't freestyled it or done much FPV. I'll definitely be sharing some video here when I rebuilt it with less janky stuff

[worldly tinsel]

yeah that method requires that you're good at LOS, or have observer goggles

[lone cosmos]

Ok, well I would love to see a 15" doing freestyle, especially if it is from the jank master

[worldly tinsel]

I have a USB receiver dongle that kinda works so I could use that with my phone and allow observer to use goggles

[worldly tinsel]

this started way too long ago. I also want to freestyle it #🌀off-topic message

it hovers easily at like 40% throttle, but it might not have great high end speed cause its current props have really low pitch (for efficiency)

[lone cosmos]

Yeah that's what I thought, you posted a picture of it months ago

[worldly tinsel]

by the time I had sent my first photo of it here, I'd already been planning to get into the FPV hobby for like another 8 months before that

so I've concluded that I just enjoy building just as much as actually flying lol

[lone cosmos]

Ok, but why a 15" tho ?

[lone cosmos]

Both cost roughly the same amount of money at the end anyway

[worldly tinsel]

"I want to get into FPV, but I want to do so in the least boring way possible, and I have almost zero money"

[worldly tinsel]

true, plus I know how to fix it myself without spending a ton

[lone cosmos]

Theses are quite opposite goals

[worldly tinsel]

and that's where you get the "least boring" part from

[lone cosmos]

Fair enought

Well, I gotta go sleep, it 11:30pm here, and I have to wake up early tomorrow

[worldly tinsel]

👋

[visual pine]

[worldly tinsel]

https://tenor.com/view/particle-particle-physics-lattice-qcd-gif-18078866036982346708