Richard A Carter
@richardacarter
Academic in Digital Culture, University of York, UK. Exploring digital art, literature, and storytelling; ecology, materiality, and the more-than-human. Glider pilot. Note: DMs not available as in UK
I've only ever had a few dealings with carbon fibre, back in my Superkarting days, but looking forward to working with it again for Kite Drone. A proper aerospace material, but with that lovely woven sheen. Definitely not for budget builds, however...
(Baby) Kite Drone at EVA London 2026! I thought I'd bring it along to demo for the delegates (albeit with a drastically shortened main spar for carriage purposes!) and I'm pleased to say it was a hit! Suggestions the project could be festival worthy in future, which is an encouraging thought 🪁
Dodos and Discos - vibrant fun with Brian Zillig's "Indigo" platform at EVA 2026 (effectively a way of easily using various formatted materials in three.js space) - bringing back the full 1990s Bryce 3D Cyberspace experience (I admit I love this stuff: I want computers to be ridiculous again)
A final week of conference events to round out the 2025-26 academic year. Off to London today to present at EVA 2026 at the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, detailing the latest hardware and software of my project "Reimagining Environmental Sensing" (aka "Kite Drone") w. @yesiuoy.bsky.social
One of the more unusual gifts I've received from a student! It reminded them of my cheery, bouncy energy!? Last supervisions today - will likely be the last time I see many of this cohort 🐯
In light of the FT article about AI, Museums, and Cultural Heritage, a reminder of the BRAID supported workbook and toolkit put together by Jo Tidy et al. (inc. myself) exploring "Coloniality, Collections and the Responsible Use of AI in Museums and Heritage" sites.google.com/sheffield.ac...
The broomstick flies! 🧹 After the highly disappointing initial flight, resulting in structural cracks, this was hugely better (and a real relief). It actually does balance in the air! First real test as well using the smaller camera sensor - not as crisp, lens-wise, but robust auto focus is welcome.
v2.1! A single test flight yielded every engineer's nightmare, structural stress cracks, so rebuilt the Kite Drone with significantly stronger mounts and (not-pictured) foam bumpers. Hurling it around and dragging it along the floor - aka ground testing - has gone well, so I might fly again soon...
We get a lot of wave cloud here in Yorkshire as it rolls off the Pennines - every time you see a wave-like cloud crest, or even a full lenticular, that's it! These big arcs of rising and falling air are powerful sources of lift in a glider.
Some fantastic wave clouds in recent days, below are from this evening
In and amongst everything else, still experimenting with this one - will take a long time, I think, to really get the concept realised, but it's fun to see it in action. Emergent interfaces.
From the digital to the actual - Kite Drone v2.0 now built! Aiming for a test flight tomorrow, in the hefty winds it was designed to handle.
Generative tree supports for 3D printing are always fascinating.
Update - 300+ miles from Dunstable, past York, and back to Dunstable again. Takeoff was at 10.30, arrival at 7. Nearly 9 hours in the air. A perfect example of what can be done, just by riding air currents.
Instagram is struggling to decide what demographic I belong to, and has currently settled on this - either thinking I want to become a rep for these or that I'm on the market for one!!
Testing the flight visualiser just off Nuuk, in Greenland. Deliberately allowing a dash of grain to the snow textures, just to give 'some' sensation of travel! #gameDev #simulation
1/ The final few! Many thanks to all the delegates for such enriching and thoughtful papers and commentaries these past 2 days. On a personal note, one thing I was struck by with this conference was that it was populated by people I've met and known across every phase of my academic career so far...
Let's go! Day One of the Critical Drone Studies Conference. Doing some chairing today and keeping the art gallery going...
Pleased to report that the train journey today has been smooth so far - only delay has, in fact, been due to animals on the line in the early morning. Given this seems to be a regular occurrence on my trips to Cambridge, I suspect a plot on their part 🐑🐏🐑🐏
After some fine tuning, the flight visualiser will now render plausible terrains across most of the globe. Emphasis on plausible rather than sat accurate! Irony, most effort has been on getting deserts to look like such, rather than the overly-green landscapes suggested by Landclass data.
Landing (was a little too high for this one - should have used airbrakes on base, but sink had been aggressive on downwind and diagonal, so was cautious).
