---
title: Leapcopter
date: 2014-01-05
tags: [javascript, hardware]
canonical: https://nicknisi.com/posts/2014-01-05-leapcopter
---

# Leapcopter

![Leapcopter in Action](@/assets/posts/leapcopter.png)

I finally purchased a Parrot AR Drone 2.0 this week after having a blast
playing with one at JSConf last year! I also recently got a Leap Motion
controller, and I thought it would be fun to get them to play together!

<Video videoId="wRECaiWOaIA" />

> Source available on [Github](https://github.com/nicknisi/leapcopter).

The [leapjs](https://github.com/leapmotion/leapjs) code was a bit buggy, especially when trying to use it from
Node, so I am interacting with the Leap Motion exclusively in Chrome and
then using socket.io to send commands up to the server, which is
controlling the drone.

On the server, I am using [node-ar-drone](https://github.com/felixge/node-ar-drone) to control the drone, and
[ar-drone-png-stream](https://github.com/Soarez/ar-drone-png-stream) to
get the video feed from the drone in the browser.

Here is a list of gestures and the what action they invoke:

- Key Tap - toggle the drown (takeoff/land)
- Circle - make the drone do a flip
- Tilt Palm Down - make the drone go forward
- Tilt Palm Up - make the drone go backwards

The drone moves very slowly, as I didn't trust a Leap-controlled drone to
go flying fast in my house quite yet. Also, once 'Land' is triggered, the
drone won't take off again, just in case I panic and start flailing about
in front of the sensor.

My future plans for this demo include to cleaning up the code (it's a mess right
now), and adding more gestures (turning, up/down).