Philly might have had drone connection to Lady Gaga's halftime show
At halftime during Sunday's Super Bowl, a light show behind Lady Gaga featured hundreds of twinkling stars magically rotating into an American flag, then spelling out the name of cosponsor Pepsi.
Intel put its branding on the spectacle and special effects, created by a formation of 300 small drone flying machines glowing with onboard LED lighting.
But a pregame Facebook post by Gauravjit "Raj" Singh, founder and CEO of Philadelphia "drone-vertising" company DroneCast, suggests that his Market Street-based enterprise had more than a little to do with staging those aerobatic special effects, viewed by 113.7 million viewers:
"To all who read my previous status about good exciting things happening at the halftime show, here's a hint. #thank youintel #thankyouGaGa #did someonesaydrones #dronecast," the post reads.
In a phone chat Monday, Singh played it close to the vest. "We can only give general information when we work with Fortune 500 companies and our partner WPP," a major global advertising company, "for clients like Ford and Ciroc," the vodka maker. "Our clients don't like for people to know who the service providers are."
Still, a study of its website suggests that DroneCast could have contributed a lot to the halftime spectacular, from designing 31-inch-wingspan custom-flying machines (the DroneCast SR1) to programming the gizmos and shepherding the show on-site.
Though small in stature, DroneCast's website says, the SR1 is strong enough to fly 60 mph, counteract strong winds, and carry payloads of up to six pounds. It can fly in very tight formation, the website says, and is fitted with LED lights capable of changing color midflight where needed, creating pixilated pictures in the sky.
To eliminate risk and the ire of the Federal Aviation Administration, the halftime drone segments were actually shot before the game, over several days above an empty stadium, Intel's Natalie Cheung said in an interview with USA Today. "We were on site for nine days, so we got the proper waivers to fly in Class C airspace up to 700 feet."
A tinkerer for most of his 22 years, the India-born, Princeton-raised Singh said he first dreamed of jump-starting the "drone-vertising" business after "reading about Amazon's plans to deliver packages with drones, and I thought, 'Well maybe they should carry signage, too, while they're flying around.' "
His prior claims to fame included a company begun before college, building "inexpensive but good" prosthetic devices.
"That's why I entered Drexel for bioengineering," he said. "Six months later, I decided I hated medicine, dropped out, and started this company. The next year, the Close School of Entrepreneurship at Drexel invited me back. I went for six days. Then Ford paid us $55,000 for four hours' work – flying a couple hundred toy trucks down to table sitters at a North American International Auto Show event. I thought, wow, this is it."
Singh was so far ahead of the drone boom that the FAA "didn't even have any rules about drone use when we started in 2014. We kind of owned our own territory. Then they came up with the FAA Part 333 exemption – every time you wanted to do an event, you would have to request permission and restrict the flights to under 500 feet and certain areas. Later came Part 107, which is like a driver's license for drones."
DroneCast helps people get their working papers. Its $6,000 DroneCast Partner Program "includes instruction in Philly or online, one of our SR1 drones, and paid job opportunities with insurance coverage through our booking service." It's "like Uber for drones," Singh agreed.
"Over the past two years, we've acquired 10 different resource companies, touching every aspect" of the drone-business, "from app development to financing, and have an accelerator program, Singh Ventures, with a fund of $5 million to invest." The group employs more than 200.