It will zoom towards you and keep you afloat

Dec 27, 2014 12:00 GMT  ·  By

Quadcopters are being used for lots of things, but despite all the practical potential applications, most news about them are entertainment or experiment-related. Project Ryptide is finally changing that.

People drown. That's a fact. It happens depressingly often, not just from boating accidents and just plain being lost at sea, but also when you're too negligent at the beach. It doesn't even have to be kids those who have lapses in judgment and buoyancy.

Then there are tsunamis and other disasters that can conclude with people washed away. Many people who would otherwise survive end up losing their lives because they can't hold out until help arrives.

Project Ryptide is all about defeating drowning

More precisely, it will deliver the magic of a life preserver ring straight to your shaking, exhausted arms.

The video embedded below is pretty short, but it outlines precisely what you can expect in the future if you go boating, fishing, swimming or whatever else.

It also shows how much easier the work of lifeguards and search & rescue crews will be if only a few drones make it into their standard equipment.

All it takes is grabbing a quadcopter capable of carrying a GoPro camera. Any old drone will do. Then you attach a self-inflating life preserver ring to it and send the drone to whoever is in distress.

When the drone reaches the person in danger, a single tap of a button will release the ring. Upon contact with the water, a CO2 cartridge releases its contents into the ring and inflates it almost instantly.

After that, the person who was about to drown just needs to hold onto the ring until help arrives. We can't really guess how many people could survive this way, in cases where they would have otherwise perished due to search and rescue crews being as subject to human limits as the rest of us (ergo, they can't be in multiple places at once).

The time frame for project Ryptide becoming standard procedure

There isn't one, unfortunately. While Bill Piedra has finished building the Ryptide, with the help of a group of students from the King Low Heywood Thomas private school in Connecticut, no one has expressed an interest yet.

Considering that the work was only published a few days ago, and that the Christmas Holidays don't lend themselves to much progress in any area, that's not surprising. What would be surprising is if no one showed interest from now on, but we honestly doubt it.

Especially with a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign coming up. A Ryptide life ring model paired with the DJI Phantom drone will sell for around $99 / €81.

Project Ryptide (4 Images)

Ryptide engaged
Ryptide takes offRyptide drops package
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