What is MAKKER?

Skills and fun

MAKKER is a fantastically easy way for you to create a drone track for racing or precision flying. MAKKER doesn’t only make it fun to fly – you just can’t help getting better at flying the more you use it. 

MAKKER was originally developed for professional drone pilots but now it can fit any drone and, more importantly, any drone pilot can use it, regardless of skill or experience. That is why we are so proud to introduce MAKKER to you – it makes the great greater and everyone better.

Straight out of the box

With MAKKER you get a tag that attaches to your drone. You then simply place the three marks in order to make up the track anywhere you like. Then the MAKKER app will log your flying times and your precision progress. It is plug’n’play and works straight out of the box. When your drone passes or hovers over a mark, the tag itself lights up and the app gives you both visual and audible feedback as well as logging your time and improvements. It is as simple as that!

Getting ready to fly is as easy as one, two, three

1. Place the tag on you drone

2. Place the marks to build you racing or precision track

3. Open the app and fly

It really is that simple. You can place the marks inside or outside, on the ground, on the kitchen floor, under a table or in a tree. The great thing is that you can decide how difficult you want your track to be. When the drone passes over a mark it will be indicated by a blue flash as well as clear sound feedback from the app.

With the MAKKER app you can either choose precision or race mode to monitor your progress and flight times. The app will then help you determine who is fastest or the most precise (they are not the same thing at all) and you can challenge yourself or your friends to beat your own personal best. You can even duplicate tracks from the best drone pilots around the world and compare your flight skills and racing times against theirs.

Get racing

The MAKKER app measures the time spent from the first to last mark – it is that easy to get a race going and all the lap and split times are saved so you can monitor your progress. Even if you place a mark out of range, the tag will still remember passing the mark and transfer times once it gets within Bluetooth range.

FPV racing is a great challenge - and really great fun! Flying inside of an old abandoned building sounds fantastic!

Precision got even more precise

The app will measure time spent hovering over a mark. This can be used to improve the flying skills by keeping the drone stationery, even in crosswinds. And rotating the drone while keeping the drone stationary over a point in crosswinds is an even greater achievement.

Start flying. It is as simple as that!

Hovering over the same spot in a crosswind is not an easy task but will improve your drone skills.

Reliability is everything. As in EVERYTHING

We know that MAKKER simply has to work. Every time. So we are using tried, trusted and field-tested Bluetooth and infrared light technology.

The MAKKER tag

The MAKKER mark

The marks emit infrared light with a specific ID. The tag then registers the infrared light and forwards the information via Bluetooth to the MAKKER app in real time. 

A race is only ever over at the very end

MAKKER lets you easily set up a finishing line as well as waypoints to get both total times and split times when racing. Split times are like in Formula 1, the intermediate times between each point.

MAKKER will help you optimise turns and evaluate your overall performance and gives you the ability to compare your racing flight times with other FPV racers around the world. That is what the MAKKER community is for - just log in and duplicate the race track of your fellow drone pilots to compare race times.

“If we could get this thing – and it could track out lap times and act as gates when we race it would be a dream come true.”

Kenneth – drone race fanatic and engineering student

Bad weather? No problem!

Even indoors, MAKKER turns drone flying into a social activity by letting you compete in races as well as precision tasks and challenges. The tight spaces of your average living room mean you are going to have to push your skills even further.

“I often practice in hovering over a chair or a table, but it would be much more fun if I could get exact feedback on how much time I could stay at the same point.”
Lukas – 12 years

“I really feel that if I had one of these at home, I really would spend a lot of time every day practicing. It is really fun to work with precision, instead of just flying really fast over something.”
Aske – 12 years

Lucas and Aske challenging each other in the kitchen. Once they pull out the chairs the track becomes that much more challenging!

From school to prof

“MAKKER is the perfect tool for flight schools. Both instructor and student will benefit from its’ ability to monitor progress at the times when precise visual feedback is crucial.

Use MAKKER to practice and maintain your flying skills as a professional drone operator in order to increase the value and the product you deliver to your clients.

“I can see a huge potential in a product like MAKKER and would be happy to introduce it to the market. Given the coming development in drone technology, there is definitely a market opportunity. The various ways it can be used for play, training and competition opens for an enormous amount of possibilities.”
Kim Nielsen, owner of Morfars.dk – Denmark’s leading drone retailer.

The possibilities with MAKKER are endless – it's your imagination that makes great ideas.

Use your imagination to create challenging tracks.

Mount a mark on the roof of an RC truck and start the chase –  the possibilities are endless.

The story behind MAKKER
 

Mikkel Barker (commercial pilot, flight, and aerobatic instructor)

“In November 2016 I bought a Phantom 2 drone to use in my business and spent a great deal of time practicing and developing my flight skills. In this process, I really found I was missing something that could provide the feedback needed to improve.

For instance, when I was trying to rotate over the same position in even the mildest summer breeze it was a real challenge and with just a little wind it would be almost impossible.

This was the start of MAKKER, to create a tool that would give precise feedback from your drone. MAKKER has taken many forms since then but we have always stuck to the basic concept – to invent an electronic device that can give you real-time feedback from your drone”

And the team behind MAKKER

From left to right – Founder, Mikkel Barker, partner Michel Riis, partner Christain Duus.

Mikkel Barker: “MAKKER has long been my brainchild and together with the team of dedicated professionals I am very excited to bring MAKKER to the drone community.”

Christian Duus: "Being responsible for the user experience, it is my job to ensure that all development is made with the end-user in mind. I have a background in interaction design and storytelling, and I am super excited to be a part of the MAKKER team."

Michel Riis: “I am responsible for the design of MAKKER and design and quality is extremely important to me. All design decisions have to mean that the user gets the best possible experience. Having worked as a designer for Yamaha Motors my heart is on fire for the race side of MAKKER and I look forward to a lot of racing.”

But we are not the only ones!

In February this year, MAKKER partnered with Innovation on Wings as well as teaming up with the University of Southern Denmark’s Center for UAS, Centre for Integrative Innovation Management (C*I2M) and UAS Test Center Denmark.

We also collaborate with Amfitech, a company that has years of experience with LEGO and whos dedicated team of electronics engineers are focused on developing easy-to-use technology that brings value and fun to a range of end-user applications. Amfitech works within the fields of high performance, cost-efficient tracking, IR and wireless technologies.

Help us get MAKKER flying

We are in the final stages of the development and we need you. All the product details are specified, the technology frame is in place and we are raring to get over the finishing line.

We are a dedicated team looking for the extra capital to do further testing and development. We love drones and have identified an untapped corner of a market that builds and grows relationships, both with the drone itself and even more importantly through the drone to other users.

With you, we want to be part of that.

Hard work and coffee!

Our studio is filled with inspiration from the field.

Working with rapid prototyping has made it possible to test the concept from a very early stage.

We have tested MAKKER on fanatic droneyoungsters .

We have tested the MAKKER concept in a parking garage with cool FPV drone pilots!

We are quite far in the development of Makker and have already experienced some of the risks and challenges associated with the creation of a new technology product! 

There are still challenges ahead, but we are doing our very best to tackle them as soon as they appear and we promise you, that we will be open and transparent and keep you well informed through the process!

We have teamed up with Amfitech in Denmark on the technology side, and their extensive experience in developing new technology is very important for the success. Among their customers are Lego, and together with them, we have the right people and the know how to see this project through – right till it lands on your doorstep!

We have already started preparing the production and we believe it is realistic to deliver MAKKER before Christmas. The MAKKER app is also planned to be available for download before Christmas! We expect to first deliver an android version and soon after the IOS version.