one of the fastest growing — and commonly misunderstood — technologies
by Andrew Faught
IM AGE IL LUSTRATIO N BASED ON PHO TOG RAPHS BY Frances Von Wong
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HHe moment of creation is immortalized on YouTube. In the grainy 15-second clip, innocuously titled “Willard Street Robot Club,” Timothy Reuter ’99 launches a national movement without ever getting off the ground. It was July 2012, and the former foreign service officer had joined some buddies to celebrate the maiden flight of his 3D Robotics Hexacopter — or recreational drone, to those whose aerial references might only extend to the balsa wood airplanes of their childhood. In the video, Reuter stands in a Washington, D.C., alley clutching the controls. He starts the propellers whirring on what, in the dark of night, looks like a pizza straining against gravity. And then, as if a mechanical flapjack, the drone rotates violently and slams into the ground. “I had spent months working on putting it together,” Reuter recalls, “and then promptly smashed the thing to pieces.” He’d make repairs and embark on a successful flight three weeks later. But that fateful night had wider-reaching implications. “The experience was part of my motivation for finding other people to teach me how to do this,” Reuter says. “I thought I’d be lucky if I could get three people who were interested in what seemed to me like a very esoteric activity.” Like his inaugural flight, Reuter again miscalculated. His outreach amounted to something far greater. Widespread interest prompted him to create the D.C. Area Drone User Group, whose membership has surged to 1,200 in the two years since it started. It’s spawned 18 similar organizations around the country
and has helped position Reuter as one of the nation’s leading proponents of civilian drone use. He’s spoken on the positive use of domestic drones to such news outlets as CNN, MSNBC and The Washington Post. His involvement has even accelerated into the commercial realm. In April, Reuter quit his job with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to co-found AirDroids, whose $550 foldable “pocket drone” is expected to go to market this fall. “I loved model rocketry as a kid, and I’m also someone who’s always been interested in new technologies. The fact that anybody could own something like this was exciting to me,” says Reuter, who owns five drones. “It tends to be addictive.”
RING BEARER: (Above right and opposite page) A quadcopter drone delivers wedding bands to Otavio and Zina Good during their July 2013 wedding ceremony at the Pulgas Water Temple in Redwood City, Calif.
CC:connecticut college Magazine
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