The Guinness World Records people have recently announced on their YouTube channel that the record for the most drones simultaneously airborne has been broken
again – inevitably by a Chinese company.
On 3 February, the Guangdong EHang Egret Media Technology Co., Ltd
(couldn’t they have come up with a shorter name) set aloft 22,580 drones in the
city of Hefei (the capital of China’s Anhui province). If I caught it properly, about 25 failed to
set sail into the sky. It beats the
previous record by something of a margin – 15,847 had been the previous record
(which was only set a few months ago – it’s getting difficult to keep up with
this particular record).
The sight is beautiful – with lots of Chinese cultural motifs
coming to life in the night sky.There
are lanterns, cityscapes and beautiful patterns, filmed by some of the drones
themselves (I don’t know if they participated as well as filmed), so you get
some interesting camera angles, both from below and above the display.What I found fascinating, too, was seeing all
of the drones lined up and being checked before the event began.The only downside to this video is that the
narration is mostly AI-driven, which could be argued as appropriate for this
kind of technological achievement, I guess.Regardless, I will stop droning on and allow you to enjoy the
spectacle.Enjoy!
Meanwhile, our sibling site, the Ark in Space, has a new feature
on the above – possibly the cutest, most adorable looking wild animal on the
planet. It is called the Greater Glider,
and as a marsupial you would not be wrong if you guessed that its home was
Australia. A nocturnal animal, the
greater glider was thought to be just one species, but all of that changed a few years ago, and
now we get three for the price of one.
Read much more about this fascinating – and super cute – animal over at
the Ark in Space, which also has an extensive gallery of beautiful pictures of
this irredeemably adorable creature. And yes, you will also get to see the greater glider glide! Image
Have you ever taken a photograph that seems to have a magical quality to it, because of the way in which the light has been captured in the shot? The chances are that you took the picture during the two times of day that photographers know as the golden hour.
The first hour of sunlight of the day makes the first golden hour. As the sun rises the light is softer than later in the day when the full and harsh rays of the sun shine down upon us. Likewise at the end of the day in the hour before sunset, the sun is close to the horizon again. As in the morning, the light travel in an oblique manner and so, instead of hitting objects straight down, hits them at an angle.
Despite numerous visits to the French capital over the
years, there is one place I have never really wished to visit – the famous
catacombs of Paris - even though it's in the dead centre of town. It’s not so much an
aversion to deathly things, but, OK, definitely an aversion to the quantity on
display. So, fortunately, this TED
lesson comes along, enabling me to take a quick tour of the Paris catacombs and
discover, thanks to some animated grisliness, how the people of Paris took
action in the 18th century. I
wonder if they realised that what they were creating would become a tourist
attraction a few hundred years down the line.
It could all have been avoided, of course, had the good
people of the 9th century not thought it a great idea to bury their
dead in the grounds of Les Innocents – and then carry on doing it for 800
years.A little bit of town planning may
not have gone amiss!Just as well there
was an abandoned network of quarries underneath the city, which themselves were causing the city a problem or two.The solution must have been obvious!
The lesson is by Stephanie H. Smith, directed by Laura
Jayne Hodkin and narrated by Adrian Dannatt. Watch it below.
I’ve been waiting for this to be unleashed… and here it is. The 2026 winner of the Best Animation
at the National Student Emmys is Love & Gold, written and directed by Connor
VanDyke and produced by Jaysen Duckworth.
Representing BYU, it’s the university’s fifth consecutive win in this
category and has now been released in full on YouTube. Watching it in full for the first time today,
this animated short certainly does have winner written all over it –
from start to finish.
Before I take a look at the film, I would like to add a note
of praise and thanks to the host of talent BYU pulled together to create this
film. This was the university’s Center for Animation’s short film project for
2025 and from the credits, it looked like the whole department worked “in the
trenches” for this short. What better
way to learn one’s craft than to be involved in a project of this size and ambition? Little wonder that BYU’s graduates almost
inevitably turn up in the credits for major animation projects. So, hat’s off to this splendid team – too many
to mention here, but thank you.
The plot is quite straightforward – the audience rocks up at
the end of two separate quests for the same thing: the treasure left behind by a
king and queen hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before. So, tension is immediately created because
the young explorer/adventurers (OK, thieves) have no intention of sharing the
booty (they are both seeking a huge gem).
Yet they soon discover that the old king and queen had no intention of
allowing someone with purely selfish motives to claim their treasure and that
teamwork will be necessary if they are to survive their ordeals inside the
castle.
You might be thinking “so far so tropey” and you would be
right. I don’t often spot in-movie
references to other movies, but I think writer VanDyke may have watched the Indiana
Jones series on repeat when he was a kid! Yet, take into consideration that
people have been recycling basic plot patterns for thousands of years, picking
over the skeletons of old stories and revivifying them for contemporary times
and audiences. Of course stories – truly
successful stories – are more than simply plots.
Much more important is who it happens to and how it’s told,
as well as what the audience now understands that older audiences didn’t (and
there are a few gleefully placed anachronisms in this dungeons and
drangons-esque setting). The
references to the undying love of the previous king and queen, and how it
impacts on the dual quest presented in this story are subtly and quickly disclosed
to the audience. The nature of the
characters, likewise, are revealed through the narrative, which bops along at
quite a speed (but not too fast to confuse the audience – it’s all there for
us). The writing is deft and tight, the
structure almost perfect. So, certainly, all the right boxes are ticked for how
it’s told.
So, on to who it happens to. Although the characters
are not named during the film, I discovered in the credits that they are Rayden
and Robin (voiced by Parley Lambert and Darci Ramirez – not that they say an
awful lot!). So, that’s how I will refer
to them from now on. The characters are particularly
well-formed, something vital in such a short film. Rayden seems like the kind of young man who
has, perhaps, walked somewhat effortlessly through life, a sort of cross
between Phoebus in Hunchback and Kristoff in Frozen. Yet there’s no swagger – he’s quite a sweetheart
which makes him immensely likable.
Robin is more difficult to pin down. She is the most complex but least trusting of
the pair – and at the same time the least trustworthy too – her selfish acts put
the couple into danger more than once. Perhaps she has been betrayed in the past? Yet like every good character arc, hers
is offered the chance of redemption. I won’t reveal any spoilers, here – it’s
up to you to watch the film and find out for yourself whether she gives in to
avarice or not. Hang around for the end
credits sequence, too – it reveals what might be in store for Rayden and
Robin in the future.
Once again, thank you students (and staff) of BYU for bringing
Love & Gold to the world. Some of
the commenters on YouTube have said, this would make a great feature-length
movie. It’s pretty much perfect as it is
– so, maybe, a sequel? Please?
Watch Love & Gold below:
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