Spent $200 on a drone for site surveys and it paid off big time

I was working on a dig in a remote part of New Mexico last fall, mapping a large surface scatter. The budget was tight, but I put about $200 into a basic drone with a decent camera. In two flights, we got a full aerial map that would have taken our team a week to grid and plot by hand. We spotted a linear feature in the images that turned out to be a previously unknown wall foundation. Without that overhead view, we would have missed it completely. Has anyone else used consumer drones for field mapping, and what model did you find most reliable?

2 comments

2 Comments

juliaa2516d ago

It's wild how cheap tech is changing basic field work. I see it with my neighbor who does roofing, he uses a drone now to check for storm damage instead of climbing all over. That same shift from hard manual labor to a quick flyover is happening everywhere. Your find with the wall foundation proves the tool is worth way more than its price tag.

hart.ryan16d ago

I used to think drones were just expensive toys. Seeing your results with a two hundred dollar model mapping that site in New Mexico really changed my mind. The fact you found a whole wall foundation from the air is a game changer for that kind of work.