I'm thinking a small electric plane with a built in live camera feed
I'm thinking a small electric plane with a built in live camera feed
Self flying planes are relatively easy. This one uses LEGO to control a standard model aircraft. Lego. I am sure you could bolt a camera to it. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O7svo7xeqYo
You could possibly use a rasPI or Arduino instaed
Definately, mindstorms is just a microcontroller in a box tied to proprietary parts and given a simple user interface. A raspi might even be able to do web control. I just used the Lego as an example as it was the only one I had seen a video of before I made the post.
Live feedback calls for fpv's which have a transmitter and a camera. You may find nice one's on hoobyking. You should ask the personnel which is best for you by live chat.
These days, you can basically buy a UAV off-the-shelf at any decent hobby store, if you have the budget for it. There are several very nice autopilot/navigation systems, some of which can be live controlled with a cell phone or other device, some you have to upload the flight path prior to flight, and simply toggle autonomous mode on or off. Depending on the autopilot, it may have provisions for output to a transmitter for telemetry downlink, or overlay on to a video source. Then you'll also need some sort of video transmitter for the aircraft and a receiver at your end. There are several ways to do that as well - there are plenty of retail video transmitters available in different frequency bands, as well as wi-fi streaming video. If you want to do it the easy way, you may even be able to find a kit with everything in one box. If you want to do it the fun way, it is definitely possible as well.