Media Releases

U of T students to pilot gesture-controlled drones in robotics competition

March 18, 2014

TORONTO, ON — In a show­down wor­thy of Star Wars, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to engi­neer­ing stu­dents will fly quad-copter drones con­trolled only by ges­tures in a bat­tle of pilot­ing and pro­gram­ming prowess.

Under­grad­u­ate stu­dents in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Depart­ment of Elec­tri­cal & Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing have writ­ten soft­ware pro­grams that allow them to con­trol quad-copter drones using only hand and arm ges­tures. The par­tic­i­pants have trained for a year to per­fect their pilot­ing tech­niques.

There will be two contests—a tal­ent show where pilots get two min­utes to show off their best moves and a timed race where drones will under­take a series of con­trolled maneu­vers.

WHAT: Jedi Wars: High-Fly­ing Robot­ics Com­pe­ti­tion

WHEN: Wednes­day, March 19 at 6 pm

WHERE: Sand­ford Flem­ing Build­ing, base­ment atri­um, 10 King’s Col­lege Road
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Toron­to, ON  M5S3G4

MAP: https://goo.gl/maps/Q3Wk7

VIDEO:  For a demon­stra­tion of a ges­ture-con­trolled quad-copter, vis­it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhyIvekzx38&feature=youtu.be

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For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

Mar­it Mitchell
Senior Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Offi­cer
The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Depart­ment of Elec­tri­cal & Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing
Tel: 416–978-7997
marit.mitchell@utoronto.ca