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Intel’s drone swarm shows off at Winter Olympics

Wed, 28th Feb 2018
FYI, this story is more than a year old

During the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 Closing Ceremony, 300 Intel Shooting Star drones took flight to celebrate the triumphant athletes who competed in this year's games.

The aerial performance painted colourful illustrations in the sky, including the Olympic mascot Soohorang, the white tiger who comes running in above the stadium, cheering on the athletes and creating a heart outline in the sky.

The Intel Shooting Star drones created a volumetric heart, symbolic of gratitude and love towards the Olympic athletes.

Intel kicked-off the Olympic Winter Games with a Guinness World Records title-breaking performance of more than 1,200 drones flown simultaneously during a pre-recorded broadcast for the opening ceremony.

Additionally, the Intel Shooting Star drones soared to celebrate the Olympians at nightly victory ceremonies, when weather and logistics permitted, creating illustrations of Soohorang, the PyeongChang logo and athletes such as skiers, hockey players and curlers across the nighttime sky.

Intel GM Natalie Cheung says, "Just like Soohorang, our Intel drones team has a challenging spirit and passion to push the limits and make amazing experiences possible.

"It's been an honour to celebrate such magnificent athleticism and teamwork with Intel drone light shows, and a victory for us to see our animations of the games come to life.

Intel has created an entirely new entertainment concept by producing drone light shows featuring hundreds of Intel Shooting Star drones all controlled by one pilot.

The drones are custom-built for entertainment purposes with a lightweight structure. Each one emits more than 4 billion colour combinations.

Intel Shooting Star drones have starred in previous light shows at various high-profile marquee events in 10 different countries, most recently integrated with the Fountains of Bellagio at CES 2018.

You can see the drones in action here:

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