Sam Dickinson - The Life of Sam

Sam Dickinson

My thoughts on AI Generated Art

My thoughts on AI Generated Art

Over the past two weeks, I've been playing with AI Generated Art, in particular DALL•E 2 and Midjourney, and what can I say, I'm addicted. What a fun thing to play with. So is it going to put artists out of work? No, at least not for a while

New Goggles

So yes, I've been missing a bit lately, just a lot of personal stuff going on, I'm exhausted! But on a happier note, I have some new (second hand) goggles for my drone. Managed to get a pretty good deal on some Fatshark HDO goggles with an ImmersionRC RapidFire module.

Ummagawd 2Fiddy

Ummagawd 2Fiddy

So yes, that time of year again, time to build another drone! Since Tommy's series on designing a sub 250g drone [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWcnsjEeOOc&list=PLw0Jlwl4Jneba_2KdF-mzbDas7zLO03-s] (highly recommended viewing if you have the time), I've been wanting to build one. The durability testing is what

Out of lockdown and over the trees

Out of lockdown and over the trees

Having completed 14 days of quarantine (plus some horrible weather), it was nice to get back out with the drone. A little rusty, and trying out new propellors (I think I'm a little obsessed with trying new ones out). I must say, I'm a big fan of these Ethix Candy

Ben Eater's 8-bit Breadboard CPU Simulator

Ben Eater's 8-bit Breadboard CPU Simulator

A number of years ago, I stumbled upon Ben Eater making an 8-bit CPU on a breadboard [https://eater.net/8bit]. I even started to replicate it myself, but only made a couple of the modules (project to come back to one day). I've had in the back of my

FPV Terminology - Part 3

FPV Terminology - Part 3

Final part for terminology, and covering all the stuff we haven't so far. Not extensive, but should cover the majority. Punch Out - Full throttle straight up into the air. A good way of testing how much raw power your drone has. Flip - Literally flipping the drone on the

Wind and a line of trees

Wind and a line of trees

So I lost my first drone. My beloved Flywoo Explorer LR4 is MIA. Quite upset about that as it was one of my favourites (just chilled relaxing flight), but on a positive, I have ordered the upgraded version, now the long wait until it's in my hands. In the mean

FPV Terminology - Part 2 - Software

FPV Terminology - Part 2 - Software

When it comes to the software side of FPV, things are much simpler than the hardware. On our flight controllers, we need to run some firmware to do all the hard work. There are a number of common options to choose from. But first, a bit of history. In the

Next.js + Strapi + Github Actions = Bliss

Next.js + Strapi + Github Actions = Bliss

I recently made a links site for my social media, essentially it's my own version of Link tree, something I wanted to do for fun and learning. A simple static page would have sufficed, but where's the fun in that? Since I already use Strapi [https://strapi.io] as a

FPV terminology - Part 1 - Hardware

FPV terminology - Part 1 - Hardware

So I've been writing about FPV (First person view) for a while now, but realise I've probably mentioned a few terms or acronyms that may be unfamiliar, so I figure I'd do a post about them. Part 1 will focus on the hardware. Drone sizing is generally specified in the

Explorer LR4 Range test

Explorer LR4 Range test

A very chilled flight along a road. Unfortunately I lost video at the end on the way back, around 1.6km from where I was parked. I'm so glad I was able to reattach the buzzer last week, made finding it so much easier. Considering buying them for my other

Gemfan Hurricane 51433

Gemfan Hurricane 51433

After my last freestyle flight [https://sdickinson.com/freestyle-day/], I was left wanting. My beloved Azure LCP 5040 were no longer up to the task of carrying my drone nicely now that I had a much heavier GoPro onboard (74g vs 158g), so time to try something else. Given that

Freestyle day

Nice to get out and about with my freestyle drone (Armattan Marmotte) today. First flight since being repaired (not the one I fixed in my previous post). A pretty rough flight bonking the ground a couple of times and nicking the trees. One thing I'm noticing with this one is

Another day, another repaired drone

Another day, another repaired drone

Just a short post, but sometimes, drones are super quick to repair, this one took all of 10 minutes (even that might be an overestimate of how long it took). 4 motor screws, 2 arm screws & nuts, and some electrical tape. Super simple. Now to wait for good weather to

The curse of the Explorer strikes again!

The curse of the Explorer strikes again!

So yes, my Flywoo Explorer has another issue. Just a minor one this time, the buzzer got stuck on when I was disabling it. Had to rip some wires out with my car keys (was travelling light, so literally only had goggles, radio and drone). Still, had a good flight.

It flies!

Yes, my bad luck drone [https://sdickinson.com/my-bad-luck-drone-that-hasnt-even-flown/] flies! A nice windy day today, but I was keen to take the new drone out. I was worried at first because as soon as I plugged the battery in, the warning buzzer started beeping. The video looked fine, and nothing

My bad luck drone that hasn't even flown

My bad luck drone that hasn't even flown

As far as drones go, the Flywoo Explorer is pretty well known, and known as a great drone (even if it had a couple of issues). But I've had the worst luck with mine, and it hasn't even flown yet. For starters, I thought there were only two versions, the

Another day, another broken drone

Another day, another broken drone

Having not flown around trees for a while, and trying out new props (Ethix Peanut Butter & Jelly) means that I'm not so steady on the sticks, gave a little too much throttle and smashed into a branch - something my Marmotte would have survived easily. Still, breaking stuff is part

A nice surprise

A nice surprise

So I tend to upload models to Thingiverse [https://www.thingiverse.com] that I think would be useful to others. My latest is a set of brackets [https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4800144] to hold a pegboard, so you can use command strips [https://www.bunnings.com.au/command-large-white-adhesive-picture-hanging-strips-4-pack_p3950291]

NGINX config for Single Page Applications

NGINX config for Single Page Applications

Whether you're using create-react-app, Next.js or even something non React based (like Angular), you'll come across the case where you write a Single Page Application (SPA) and need to support linking into a particular page. Default webserver config doesn't really support this very well. eg. If you have a

Rebuilding my photography site

Rebuilding my photography site

So to go along with my 10 year anniversary, I launched the latest version of my website [https://sdphoto.com.au]. To the casual observer, not much has changed. Very similar layout, but underneath, it's totally brand new. So why did I change it then? I used to be a

10 years of model photography (NSFW)

10 years of model photography (NSFW)

So here it is, 10 years of model photography. What a journey it's been and something I've stuck with for the decade! While I'm on hiatus due to family reasons, I thought I'd post the 15 shoots that have influenced me the most. 1. Gotta go with the very first

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