With a few weeks more of tinkering, I developed a Lego autopilot that
had most of the functionality of a professional device, if not the
performance. But it became clear that Mindstorms, for all its charms,
was too big and expensive to serve as the ideal platform for homemade
drones. Looking for a better way, I decided to conduct my search for
answers online in public, sharing what I’d done and found. Instead of
setting up a blog, I registered DIYDrones.com and established a social
network for people who were experimenting with autonomous aircraft.
That distinction—a site created as a community, not a one-man news
and information site like a blog—turned out to make all the difference.
Like all good social networks, every participant—not just the
creator—has access to the full range of authoring tools. Along with the
usual commenting, they can compose their own blog posts, start
discussions, upload videos and pictures, create profile pages, and send
messages. Community members can be made moderators, encouraging good
behavior and discouraging bad. Open to anyone who chose to participate,
the site was soon full of people trading ideas and reports of their own
projects and research.
So we should learn Ning? (or a free replacement) [Those I knew who built in Ning left when they decided they had to make money off it. Note: the providere of some of these tools are not making the tool available so our classes can be better; the tool is free until they can figure out how to make money off the most users. So spread the word about that nifty new site and see how long before it goes "pro."]
So if you, like Chris Anderson, want visitors to your corner of the internet, provide a place for them to share, not just to read your thoughts ... and post comments. We don't want comments; we want code!
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