Micro FPV indoor blacklight/led course

 In this article I will explain how to build an immersive tiny whoop track using blacklights and stuff You can find in a dollar store. I will also give some tips on how to find a good indoor place to use.

This project started as a protest / solution to stupid Swedish prohibition law regarding cameras on drones. Simply two laws that contradict eachother resulted in drone cameras being classed as surveilance cameras. More on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__8jIVljOjM  and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDPO-3so3ac

Students Axel, Erik, Melker, Christian, Pontus at Flygakademien and I built this track in 2 days. Thanks to Linsan for the LED light equipment and L.E.C for UV canons .

So I found a venue, actually upstairs from our workshop, It is not big, but enough for a fast 20 second Whoop race track. I started out, actually without having any measures of the venue, with doing a model in sketchup (which only was a start) Here below is the sketchupmodel. I am a beginner sketchup user, bare that in mind.
Sketchup file

The venue can be any small or medium sized conference hall. Usually if it is a conference hall it is not used during weekends. A Concert hall, may be unused during weekdays. The bottom line is that there are many spaces that are empty, and if You have Your secret weapon (a FPV quad and 2 pair of goggles, one for You and one to dazzle the owner of a suitable venue) it should be easy to find a place. If You have an iPad, bookmark one of the eyecandy Dubai championship track videos at night, and maybe this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-C4y2SXuUw  or this one https://youtu.be/lMyCMinOBYw) to show the venue owner what "look" you are going for. A controversial idea is buying a couple of 15$ micro drones from banggood to "bribe" with... Chance is the owner of a place has a kid. Thats how I scored the LED pars rent free, well ok, not free but only 15$ instead of 100.

Here is a photo of the place before we turned it into a whoop track. 

Lacking the resources in ledstrips, I turned to blacklight as a universal "make it glow magically" solution.

I used 3 big 400W Blacklight spots,

Mostly since the alternative, fluorescent blacklight tubes, are too fragile.
The UV canons had a metal mesh guarding the bulb.
Also about 10 LED par lights ADJ TriPAR LED, set to blue, to make sure there was enough UV in the room. There is a UV ledstrip which has quite some punch in it and It might be a good investment. EBAY LINK.

There are quite many materials that are fluorescent. For example Hobbyking Aeromodelling Foam, white yarn, printer paper, some of 3d printer filaments, hot glue, and so on. Go to a dollarstore with a UV flashlight. If You dont have one, use first a red and then a blue marker coloring the front glass of a flashlight (or use cling-film if there is no glass). Or use this method on Your phone flashlight: https://youtu.be/TFl4S3rv6AQ

 

Also, If You want to paint stuff, remember this trick. If the surface You paint is natively uv reflective, the overall brightness will be really good. Artists that paint fluorescent backdrop paintings that look like they have been painted on black fabric are actually painted on white, to get the more of the fluorescence, and the surrounding white fabric is painted black. Never try to paint a black surface directly with fluorescent. This will give You about 30% of the brightness only. If using a bicycle tire, first paint it white, then fluorescent.

 

There are tons of different fluorescent colors. I stick to ROSCO brand. Ususally You get what You pay for. Blue fluorescent paint tends to actually be darker that just an unpainted piece of printer paper, which looks blue under blacklight. So dont bother about blue unless You use it to contrast another fluorescent colours. Here are the colours demonstrated below.

We lasercut some arrows in a very foam-economic layout and used masking tape that we rolled into double sided adhesive tubes to make the arrows stay put. 

Here is the illustrator file of the arrows 

arrows

We used a Pool noodle matress and two bicycle mudguards to build the tunnel. Inside we put LED strips.

  Above the tunnel with a whole sheet of fluorescent paper. Thats before we cut it into strips. One thing about blacklight is that after it hits the fluorescent surface, it becomes visible light. So this big sheet actually lightened up the whole place way too much.

These gates were made of standdard 16mm pvc tubes, normally used to install electric wires.
Inside a 2,5m rgb led strip from hobbyking with a rc switch, controlled by a servo tester.
Also 3 wooden boards, about half an inch thick with two 16mm holes as base.
We are now planning on creating some 20 more gates, this time using the cheaper one colour ledstrips. Search for non waterproof 5050 ledstrips on banggood. Not RGB. 
 

This is a bicycle rim without spokes. I used the same kind of string that is used for windowblinders, which I colored by winding it around a Mountain Dew can and sponging it with fluorescent acrylic colour.
The net is weaved the same way you make a dreamcatcher. IF you are skilled, it is possible to fit a tiny whoop in the hole.

 The hexagon is just a simple foamboard  10x10cm square tube design.

Here we used also pvc pipe but this time we covered it with selfadhesive green fluorescent paper. Holding the entire construction up are microphone stands.A Fluorescent very stretchy fabric made the diamonds in the middle.

Here I went for the Manic Spider look. Used the same string but this time I made stripes on the string wound on a dew can, resulting in multicoloured string. A good friend in this case is rubberbands. Loop them around string and hook them around the thumbscrews on stands. The microphone stands have lots of places like to fasten it around. Also, ususally where there is a stage, there are microphone stands. 

Originally we had a big piece of fluorescent "wrapping paper-ish" stuff that we put on top of the tunnel, but during the second day I decided to cut it up in strips and use them as lane marking lines. That made the whole course even more immersive. Here below You also see a bigger hole below the whoophole. Pun intended.

In the video below You can see how we used a 5.8ghz reciever with video routed through videomapping/projection mapping software MadMapper. This is not easy and I cant really go into the details about how that works. Took me a year to learn ut myself. But if You own a projector and a MacBook or any apple computer with at least two outputs for video/vga (macbook=one is enough, mac-mini = 2 are needed. One for Your monitor and one for projector).
If You are determined to get it working but dont have a mac, I suggest Resolume Arena. 
I did one big mistake in the projection setup. The "screen" above finish line is natively fluorescent, thats why the video brightness looks gained up. 

 You can also simply put a 5.8 reciever connecting on top of the projector hanging from the ceeling, set to the right channel. Make sure that it is a channel used by the pilots. Best tip is making a sign, telling pilots which four frequencies to use and which one is connected to video on projector.

 Lastly some wise words. Any company softens in their attitude when You mention doing it for the kids. If you add that this kind of event distracts kids from staring at their bleeping phones, they soften even more. Probably there is a stage and a small concert hall in Your neighborhood. If it is a no budget thing. Instead of Blacklights, use deep blue color gels on ordinary PAR cans. Lasercutting? Search for a makerspace. Or maybe FlitetTest can manufacture some speed build arrow kits. (not ft arrow).

Showing up at a industrial workshop having a lasercutter, with a micro quad, foamboard and passenger-goggles might be an idea too. And give the guys a hell of a ride. They might then help cut some arrows.

Next event is planned first or second weekend in December. A new article with some "daylight" pictures and videos will be written then. 

So go on, find a place and turn it into a whooptrack!