No, really, how many drones does it take to change a lightbulb? If you’re reading this then you’re probably thinking “One.” And… you’d be wrong. It takes two. And a whole lot of lightbulbs.
This little mission, which saw the destruction of many an innocent bulb, sees a pair of drones being used to manipulate standard screw-in lightbulbs in an exposed fitting. There’s no light cover or anything fancy, just a basic fitting, drones and a lot of patience. And a custom tool on top for gripping the light bulb, because quad-copter blades are not known for their delicate holding abilities.
Rather than an exercise in laziness, the episode is an essay in pilot dexterity. It seems to be quite possible to get the bulb out easily enough, though it’s just as simple to demolish the lightbulb in the process as the drone is pushing upwards during the unscrewing and is prone to dropping the fragile glass. Hence all the sweeping. Getting the drone to screw the bulb back in seems like the easiest part, provided the screw-in portion can be aligned with the fitting accurately. It still takes a fair amount of pilot skill to execute, though.
Now if we could just teach drones how to do this sort of thing on their own, we could start making all of our ceilings higher.
Source: Marek Baczynski (YouTube)