Paul had always fantasized about having a drone to follow his son as he takes his morning walk out to the school bus. At some point, you just have to stop fantasizing and make things happen right? That’s exactly what Paul did. He bought a quadcopter, strapped a cell phone to it, and sat back to enjoy.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t quite right yet. He really wanted it to follow his son automatically. To do this, he ended up putting a GPS beacon in his son’s backpack.

The final verdict?

So, did it work? Mostly. The copter is skittish when it’s windy, and GPS guidance is good to 10 meters at best. Because my particular front yard is only about 15 meters across, with a long, tree-edged driveway leading to the street, I either have to follow automatically above the treetops—where I can’t really see what’s going on—or else supplement the autopilot with old-fashioned line-of-sight remote control. Which somewhat defeats the original plan of staying warm and dry while a drone does my parenting.