A Cry for Help

ok. so, i don't want to know if any of this is illegal – if anyone knows that it is for a fact, keep it to yourself because i plan on pleading ignorance. so here's what i am doing, and you guys are coming along for the ride. the plan is to use kiddie toys and other easily and cheaply available parts to build an automated surveillance drone. yeah, you know the predator and other UAVs you see in those pictures with a crowd of arabs around them, ak-47s in the air? one of those, only about $39,999,880 cheaper. The goals are a)anyone can do it, and b)piss cheap. so i bought some stuff on ebay, totaling about $120 +shipping; feel free to buy the parts and follow along. as pictured below, i purchased:

1. a made in china, "flying" shitpile called the firebird 400 ("top thunderbolt war king"). it says 3 channel, but its really 2, and i won't even get into the engrish instruction manual (not now anyway). ($39.99)

2. (10) 3 volt 25maH flexible solar panels. ($29.50)

3 & 4. a miniature wireless camera, transmitter, and receiver. ($21.00)

please note that the pictures are not to scale and that in some cases, shipping well exceeded the cost of goods, but it still was piss cheap.

so what i am going to do is increase the range to a target of 1-2 miles, supplement the power source with the solar panels, integrate the wireless camera and transmitter, then wire the radio setup to be controlled via usb. finally, i will write and make available the code to receive and record the video, as well as create flight plans and control the plane on it's covert operations.

i will chronicle the entire thing, including posting of surveillance videos on bil.com over the upcoming weeks. why? because i'm drunk and bored. so order your chinese turdcopters and follow along! fight the power. as always, with love, ultra laser.