Drones, by Vinay Ghai

7 Responses to "Drones, by Vinay Ghai"

Marissa Liebman says:

May 10, 2014 at 12:00 pm

Very interesting presentation, and it ended exactly on time. Nice job. I had no idea that ancient civilizations portrayed use of unmanned anything. You had a really strong military focus in your project, which was cool for me to listen to. I understand that news media outlets are pushing to have legal drone use to film all sorts of things, which I think would have been a really interesting topic to touch on. It would have also been interesting to hear where drones are projected to rise in the future, but that might have been too much to cover. All in all you had a clear voice and very clean presentation. Nice job!

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Noah Steinberg says:

May 10, 2014 at 3:26 pm

Really good slidecast Vinai. I watched your previous one on the house of the future, and one thing in particular i noticed right away was a slower paced narration which lead to more clarity. I previously knew that the evolution of the drone originated in WW1 & WW2, but i was interested in how the first drone in WW1 was invented in a way that when the programmed number of engine rotations hit, it stops flying and falls to detonate on it’s target. As with the historical context with pocket switching, secrecy and survivability are present in the drones in the Cold War era.

In today’s world, security plays a similar part, but now it is to discuss the question of how many innocent can die as a result of a drone strike on terrorists. This is extremely controversial, primarily because mistakes escalate global conflicts. If the USA were to do this, they need to have non-bias (unlike the news stories mentioned in the slidecast), concrete evidence that they are targeting terrorists and not just “an enemy”. Once a nation such as the USA has the capability to drone attack any “enemy”, it will lead to a fascist, over-controlling government.

This slidecast does a great job providing political, social and cultural content to provide a holistic view on drones. As in the military, they are seen as a technology that adds progress power, bias topics of interest from society provide a different outlook. It concludes with the fact that technically speaking, toy helicopters and even the Mars rover are both drones, not just the militaristic view that most have about them.

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Eric Martocci says:

May 10, 2014 at 4:13 pm

The history of the drone was fascinating. I had no idea that the Kettering bug and Teletank ever existed. The whole ethical issue of drone strikes killing civilians could be argued heavily from both sides. As long as there have been wars there have been civilian casualties. Whenever you drop a bomb from thousands of feet in the air, either by drone or conventional bombers, this is always a risk. Could the increase of civilian casualty be also attributed to the types of war that are being fought today as compared to the past? Many of today’s campaigns are not against military foes dressed in uniform on some battlefield, but against radicals and other groups who are dressed like the civilians and hiding in residential areas.
Drones can be very useful for non-military use. As shown in the second slide drones make it possible to do inspections of buildings and bridges without the need for a person to be climbing around and needlessly falling. In this aspect the drones do the opposite of military use they save lives.
The presentation was very interesting but seemed to be very heavily based on military use. It could have used more than one slide showing civilian uses. Overall I thought the presentation was very well done. Narration was clear and easy to understand and the timing was good. Nice job.

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Ethan Ossolinski says:

May 11, 2014 at 6:24 pm

Quite nicely done, I think that this is a very interesting topic in that, when it comes to ethics its one of the hottest topics being debated today. It’s interesting then to see how the fact that a technology is used for a specific purpose is not completely a result of the society in which it exists. It seems today that much of the population of the U.S. doesn’t support the killing of innocents with drones. However, the government continues to use them. I thought you did a really good job with research, and it came through in the presentation with a wealth of knowledge available to back up almost everyone of your points. I think the less understood aspect of drones is how they will impact our lives in the civilian market, and you addressed this question thoroughly. Overall a great job.

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Jacob Haase says:

May 12, 2014 at 2:43 pm

This presentation was very clear, on topic and informative. Having done my last slidecast on robots, I was happy that you began your chronological discussion of drones with automata. In retrospect, after viewing this presentation, I would’ve probably made a few changes to mine, incorporating more unmanned technologies as opposed to just the humanoid robots that I focused on. Anyway, as Ethan said, this slidecast was very thoroughly researched and you provided ample details and examples. One thing that stuck out to me was how you focused on the context of aerial drones. It was interesting to hear not only about their context in time, but also their geographical context. You did focus a lot on the military use of drones, however I thought that it was appropriate considering that that is their current primary use and what the public hears most about. You spoke clearly and slowly and there was little to no background noise. Good job Vinay! You done good kid.

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Sean Burke says:

May 12, 2014 at 2:54 pm

This was a very informative and well-presented slidecast about drone technology, history and development. The only constructive criticism I have would be to talk a little bit slower, but you had a lot of good information, so I can understand that you had to fit it all in the time constraints. It was interesting to hear that autonomous entities dated back to possibly ancient Greece, with robots that operated mechanically. That’s something you never hear about! It was good that you gave an informative yet succinct history of autonomy in the military, touching on teletanks, that World War II “drone,” and unmanned Cold War surveillance cruisers. You gave good discussion about patronage, saying that governments originally were the primary sponsors for drones, but now private companies and even individuals are implementing drones into their work, such as for finding damaged spots in cathedral walls. What would a presentist say about drones? Have we made progress?

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Zack Benedetto says:

May 16, 2014 at 8:06 pm

It was cool to hear about how drones were used to do inspections on churches and cathedrals. Those this seems to point to that drones might replace a lot of human jobs some day. This can be good if the jobs are dangerous, but bad if it results in higher levels of unemployment. It was also surprising to learn that flying drones were used as early as World War I. I also didn’t know that amazon was starting to make deliveries using drones, so this slidecast was very informative. I wish there was more examples of non military uses of drones, although I supposed have been used much more for military purposes. You made a good point about the controversy about how it is seen as a huge deal when a drone kills civilians, but not much is noticed when they save civilians. It was also a good point about how video games really make drones seem like these great useful technologies, ignoring the controversies with them. I think this was a great slidecast, although you talked a little fast and sometimes it was hard to follow because of that.

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