Monthly Archives: November 2013

Second Drone Flight with SU Football

November 16, 2013

On Thursday we went back into SU’s Manley Field House with a camera-equipped dji Phantom drone to perform some new test flights. Our goal this time was to get aerial footage of a few typical football plays, including short passes, long passes and runs. You can watch the video here:

While it’s a little choppy (an issue that can easily be addressed with the addition of a gimbal), we got some good results and were able to show how aerial photography can be a safe, effective way to get footage that is difficult or impossible without the use of a drone. You can see the best example near the end, where the drone follows a player during a long pass.

Covering a casual practice is one thing, but it’s difficult at this point to say how this type of footage could be captured safely with more players on the field, not to mention a live audience in the stands and coaches and players on the sidelines. Thankfully, we’re not the first to attempt this, and we most certainly won’t be the last. Fox Sports in Australia is already well into its second year of drone-assisted sports journalism with its FoxCopter, and the FAA specifically mentioned “communications and broadcast, including news/sports event coverage” in a roadmap document about the introduction of unmanned aerial aircraft systems in the U.S. The question of using drones to cover U.S. football games is a matter of “when,” not “if.”

We want to thank Bob Brotzki, Assistant Football Coach, and Steve Scarnecchia, Director of Football Operations, for their participation. Both are featured in the video along with other SU football staff members.

Kick it Up Updates

November 16, 2013

We’re getting ready to feature and promote Kickstarter campaigns through Newhouse’s Kick it Up Crowdfunding Training and Acceleration program. Here are a couple of important updates.

Crowdfunding for Media Rescheduled to February

Due to some unavoidable scheduling conflicts at Kickstarter, the “Crowdfunding for Media” event originally planned for November 19 will be rescheduled to sometime in February. We know that many of you were looking forward to meeting with Kickstarter and getting advice on your campaigns, and we apologize for any inconvenience this causes you. Fortunately, Kickstarter’s Stephanie Pereira provided a lot of useful information in a Webinar in October, which you can watch here. We also highly recommend that you take an hour to go through the information at Kickstarter School.

But Keep Working on Your Campaigns!

While the crowdfunding event date is changing, we are still planning to start featuring and promoting Newhouse students campaigns beginning Wednesday, November 20. If you’re interested in receiving matching funds from Newhouse, make sure you do the following:

  1. Sign in to Kickstarter.com and request a connection with the Newhouse network. We can’t feature your campaign on the Newhouse curated page until you connect with us.
  2. Begin your Kickstarter campaign, and let us know it’s live so that we can feature it. We will feature any campaign from a Newhouse student as long as it meets the same quality standard for publication that you are used to in a Newhouse class, or a site like TheNewhouse.com. Since Kickstarter reviews and approves every campaign on its site, make sure you allow enough time for their approval.
  3. After your campaign is live, you can apply for matching funds from Newhouse.

Have questions? Fill out our contact form and we’ll get back to you.

Good luck!