Until now, a beer dropping out of the sky into the middle of a party has been a feat that only existed in TV commercials. Thanks to Darkwing Aerials though, attendees at the Oppikoppi music festival in South Africa can fulfill the dream of beer lovers everywhere and have a fresh brew delivered to them from above with the help of a flying drone.
Much like the last year's Burrito Bomber, this delivery drone is a standard UAV equipped with a release mechanism for dropping a payload – in this case, one can of frosty cold beer. Instead of a wing-shaped model however, the designers opted for an octocopter from SteadiDrone to handle the not-so-heavy lifting.
From August 8-10, when Oppikoppi is in full swing, festival-goers in the District 9 campsite will be able to order a beer through an iOS app and have it dropped at their location. Once it's released, the beer can deploys an attached parachute and floats gently to the ground for pickup.
The drone is piloted manually at the moment, but the designers hope to have it making deliveries automatically soon (following a GPS grid). How they'll be able to prevent the wind from sending a delivery off-course – or worse, disabling the parachute entirely and beaning someone on the head – is another matter entirely.
Check out the video below to see how the modified octocopter will rain delicious beer on thirsty festival-goers this summer.
Sources: YouTube, Oppikoppi via Huffington Post
