Get Prepared for Drone Odyssey Challenge

Drone Odyssey Challenge (DOC) is organized by Science Centre Singapore yearly, with support from the Ministry of Education (MOE) and various partners.

DOC 2024 consists of four major categories:

    Obstacle Challenge

    Drone Swarming Challenge

    AI Visual Sensing

    Drone Soccer

If you’re new to drones, participating in the Obstacle Challenge is a good choice. This challenge focuses on the application of drones in specific scenarios, allowing only one drone per team. To achieve good results, participants need to be familiar with drone features and parameters and apply the corresponding functions for different scenarios. Most functions can be implemented through Scratch visual programming, though Python can also be used.

The Drone Swarming Challenge and Drone Soccer are team-based projects that require coordination among multiple drones.

AI Visual Sensing focuses on visual algorithm processing and requires a certain level of knowledge in Python and OpenCV. Many functionalities in this challenge cannot be implemented using Scratch visual programming, making it less suitable for beginners.

In addition, DOC groups participants based on the brand of drones they use, ensuring that those using the same brand are placed together.

Participants can choose drone brands from Parrot/CoDrone or the DJI Tello series. Considering the market performance of these two companies, DJI’s drones outperform Parrot in terms of flight control algorithms and stability. Therefore, I chose Tello as Alan’s first drone.

The DJI Tello series has three products: Tello (Standard Version), Tello EDU and Tello Talent. Tello Talent offers the most features and expandability, making it the best choice if budget permits. It provides more ways to play and solve problems. The Tello EDU is also a good choice if the budget is limited. The standard Tello is not recommended, as it lacks features like mission pad recognition, which are crucial for tasks such as identification and positioning.

Lastly, let’s discuss the programming languages that can be used with Tello Talent.

Since the Tello platform is relatively open, it supports many IDEs and programming languages. After several trials, for visual programming, I recommend using Mind+. It offers the best integration and stability. The only downside is that it is only available for Mac and Windows, so it cannot be used on an iPad.

For code-based programming, I recommend using PyCharm with the DJItellopy library, which is highly stable.

Due to certain reasons, these drones are no longer receiving official updates. However, with the current SDK features, they are sufficient for programming competitions.

Each drone model has its hardware characteristics and limitations, such as response delay, recognition accuracy, and recognition distance. Continuous practice is required to gain experience and improve proficiency.