The Dirty Secret Behind the Super Bowl Halftime Drone Display
The Super Bowl Halftime Show has come a long way from Up With People. It's now better viewed as an annual Olympic Opening Ceremony, a bright and tightly choreographed attempt to capture a sense of national zeitgeist through a musician's back catalog. And now the drones have arrived.
The 300 drones flying in formation only appeared at the beginning and end of Gaga's performance, but quickly became the talk of the Internet.
SERVER: anything to drink?
ME: just a coke
(a TERRIFYING ARRAY OF DRONES forms the word PEPSI in the sky)
ME: p-pepsi's fine- Rob Dubbin (@robdubbin) February 6, 2017
The only catch? That part wasn't live.
It's obvious in hindsight. Three-hundred drones flying above one of the most densely packed sporting events of the year, broadcast live to millions of millions of folks at home? There's not just a risk of failure, but perhaps even failure with injury. Which is why, according to Wired, the display was actually filmed earlier in the week. FAA restrictions prohibited a live display, and variables like the weather would just have complicated matters further.
Aside from that, it was an impressive display. It was the most visible platform Intel's "Shooting Star" program-which choreographed the drones-has ever gotten, with the earlier runs at Disney Springs looking like trial runs for the big game.
Shooting Star drones are built solely with this type of extravaganza in mind. Each weighs 280 grams, or 0.6 pounds. A DJI Phantom drone, for purposes of comparison, weighs almost three pounds. They're built, according to Intel, "with a soft frame made of flexible plastics and foam and contain no screws."
What they lack in screws, Shooting Stars make up for in LED lights, which are built in and " can create over 4 billion color combinations in the sky." All 300 drones are controlled through a single central computer and operator, although in case of a Super Bowl emergency Intel had a second pilot on backup.
This lightness and flexibility comes with trade-offs: a Shooting Star can only withstand wind speeds of 10 m/s, which would cause a small tree to sway. Operating at 700 feet in the air with a special permit from the FAA, Intel didn't want to risk an environmental screw-up. So they came to Houston early and waited until they found conditions that were right.
"So there's a lot of weather and environment (issues)," Intel's general manager in Houston, Natalie Cheung told USA Today. "In February, you don't know what it will be like during Super Bowl day. We'd hate to plan all this and, if the wind speeds are too high or if it's raining and the roof is closed, no one can see this spectacular show. So our creative team as well as the Super Bowl creative team felt this would be best to be filmed."
While the drama of the halftime show was eclipsed by the game itself, going into overtime for the first time in Super Bowl history, it's clear Intel plans to take its Shooting Stars on the road. Nobody has ever used the show, this year watched by 160 million, to make a grand finale.
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