October 2015 - Faine Greenwood

I wrote about the new sport – and yeah, it’s a sport – of drone racing for Slate. I headed to World Makerfaire in Queens at the end of September, which was definitely the first time I’ve ever been out to Queens. (It takes a long time when you’re heading in from Brooklyn, as it turns out, though I’m glad the NYC subway has a flat fare).

Drone racing was a huge hit at World MakerFaire 2015, and it was fascinating to watch the public reception, considering that I’d only just become aware of the sports existence a year ago. Here’s hoping we’ll soon be able to bet on high-tech drone races in Macau and Monaco in the not so distant future. Check out the Aerial Sports League for more information.

Some bonus photographs from the event, which didn’t make it onto Slate:

Kenneth Loo on the field. FPV goggles are at least semi-cool, if you ask me.

Eli attaching a baseball to a Hiro battle drone, since, duh, what else are you going to do?

Jason fixing a drone before getting back into the race.

Reiner is having some sort of strong opinion here but I can’t remember what it was.

In which I experiment with action photography settings on my D600.

It’s a Weird World After All – Roads and Kingdoms

“The white form of Christ the Redeemer, standing considerably shorter than his Brazilian counterpart, spun in slow motion atop a yellow pedestal on an orange, artificial mountain. Candy-colored gondolas bobbed gently above the Christ’s outstretched, beseeching arms. A waterslide, painted blue and rimmed with green, snaked down the side of the mountain. The scent of cumin-flavored lamb skewers hung in the air. Off in the distance I could see an ersatz Egyptian pyramid; the white and shining spire of a Western-style church; and the Guinness World Records-certified world’s largest public bathroom. Beyond the attractions, across the wide brown expanse of the Yangtze River, rose the green and hazy hills of Chongqing, dotted with white apartment buildings still under construction.

I was at an international themed Chinese amusement park, and it was exactly as weird as I’d expected it to be.”

Sometimes I still travel write! Special bonus offer – this Flickr album has all the photos I took while I visited Meixin Foreigner’s Street.

Faine Greenwood

Month: October 2015

Drone Racing at MakerFaire – Slate Piece

It’s a Weird World After All – China’s Foreigner Theme Park