Drones are getting a lot of bad press (for obvious reasons) but the South African music festival OppiKoppi is putting them to great use by figuring out a way to deliver beer to you via drone and parachute.
As Medical Daily reports, the OppiKoppi Festival – this year featuring local acts Jeremy Loops, The Black Cat Bones, and The Narrow – will see the beer drones deliver alcoholic beverages – securely strapped into a parachute – to festival goers via GPS coordinates programmed into the small remote-controlled helicopter, its flight powered by eight propelling rotors.
Alcohol vendors and stores selling liquor at the festival will receive beverage orders lodged from customers’ phones and apps, then attach beer cans to parachutes and load them into the device.
According to the drones’ developers, the model will be updated and eventually synchronised with a GPS gridded map of the OppiKoppi festival venue, making the use of the remote control obsolete.
Assuming the parachute unfolds correctly and the beverage lands safely, punters will have chilled drinks delivered to them throughout the three-day festival, held in the Limpopo Province, a region close to the border of Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
What happens if the parachute doesn’t open or if the drone crashes? Someone could get hurt and alcohol could be wasted but the idea is awesome and shows a glimpse into the future. Beer delivering drones instead of drones killing people sounds like a great idea in my book!
I can imagine an Electric Daisy Carnival in the future where I program where I am into my phone and a beer falls from the sky into my hands!
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