Disney's drones flying in formation
Disney has teamed with Intel to create a drone-flight extravaganza, the “Starbright Holidays”, in Orlando. Using 300 drones, the synchronised aerial display features Intel’s latest quadcopters, appropriately named Shooting Stars. After five months of coordination, the live display can feature over 4 billion colour combinations because of the LEDs on the drones, which are made of a soft frame of plastics and foam. The drones are programmed with an algorithm assessing each drone’s suitability for each particular display role. In future, the technology may be used for commercial fleets.

With the push of a button, 300 drones ascend from a ground station and float over a nearby lake. You can't see them at first---it's well after sundown---but you can hear them falling into formation. The music starts, the drones light up, and the choreography begins. This isn't just the latest Disney World attraction. It's a whole new breed of entertainment.

That's the hope for both Disney and Intel, anyway, as they prepare to launch previews of their "Starbright Holidays" extravaganza in Orlando. The drones are Intel's new Shooting Star quadcopters, and while this isn't Intel's biggest air show---the company synced up 500 of them earlier this year in Sydney---it will be the first implementation in which Disney's imagineers helped guide the production.

"Our drones, together with Disney's expertise in animation as well as storytelling, and the music score, together make what we think is going to be a groundbreaking for of entertainment," says Josh Walden, general manager of Intel's New Technology Group.

It's taken five months of close coordination between Intel and Disney to get this far, all to the end of creating a live experience that's as engrossing as it is technologically innovative. And what's fun for the whole family today may end up having more serious applications down the road.

Drone Home

The final details of the Starbright Holidays show are still being worked out. What we do know, though, is how the Shooting Star drones work. In short, very impressively.

I absolutely see this applicable to controlling a fleet of drones in a commercial space. Josh Walden, general manager of Intel's New Technology Group

The drones themselves don't look like much, but then again they're not supposed to; they're simply flying LED delivery systems, capable of creating over four billion color combinations. They each weigh a little over half a pound, are just over a foot long and wide, and feature a soft-frame construction of plastics and foam (safety first).

What matters much more is what the drones can do when they're aloft. Namely, anything you tell them to, in any combination. What Intel has created is not simply drone hardware, but an entire platform on which to build aerial spectacles.

"They way that they work is that they wirelessly talk with the computer. The drones don't actually communicate with each other," says Walden. "You program them upfront for the light show itself, and then the drones essentially are independent."