Carefree and Point-of-Interest

After some research online, I found the issue that was preventing our 'copter from yawing to point and tilt the camera at a point-of-interest while executing waypoints. According to the mikrokopter website, Carefree mode must be enabled to use POI mode. This is a safety feature, because after you have finished executing a series of waypoints, it is tricky to see the orientation of the 'copter. In Carefree mode, the 'copter knows where you are when you started it up, and it works out the angle between you and it. It then assigns whichever direction lies away from you as its nose, so that if you tilt it right, it moves (apparently to you) right, left left, and so on. Thus if it is far away at the end of the execution, or something goes wrong in the meantime, you can simply tilt the control joystick toward you, and it will fly back toward you, without worrying about where its real 'nose' is pointing.

As it happened, I had a convenient moment to test this functionality, as a group of National Youth Science Forum students are visiting Curtin / ICRAR, and I've been asked to demonstrate the 'copter to them. They will be visiting the courtyard behind my building, so I had a quick look and saw a convenient grassy space they could sit in, while I used the larger area to fly.

I readied the transmitter and 'copter and programmed in the POI, -31.99447 lat, 115.88896 long. I pointed it toward the POI to start with, so that it was reversed controls compared to how one usually flies. I wasn't sure what would happen if I started with Carefree enabled, so I throttled up with it disabled. However I found the reversed controls so confusing that I immediately landed again, and decided to try with Carefree enabled from the start. I re-uploaded the POI, turned on the camera, and switched the CF switch on the transmitter to the 'on' position. This time the controls were not reversed, although it was very strange to be flying with all of the reflective lights and tape no longer relevant. I brought up the 'copter and took it a bit toward the crowd - who unfortunately were sitting in the shade, approximately where the green arrow is, rather than at the POI I expected! (show picture) After a minute or so of hovering, and gently moving it around, I took the 'copter back to its landing point, brought it down and took questions from the students. When we looked at the video, the POI tilt had worked well - although it would have been nice to have the people centred in the image.

Lessons

1. It's a good idea to start with CF enabled if you do not have the nose facing away - and it works absolutely fine.
2. Enabling CF does enable POI functionality.