Rising Sun FPV’s Race to Support the Region’s Drone Community
YouTube wormholes can lead to some very sketchy corners of the internet but for Australian Army Veteran Zakariah Martin-Taylor, it has led him to create a business that has grown from a solo, home garage venture into Rising Sun FPV and 3D.
After sustaining an injury in 2015 while on a training exercise in Townsville, Zak was eventually posted to Newcastle in 2017 where he filled his downtime away from work scrolling the archives of the video platform. It was there he came across First Person View (FPV) Drone racing.
“It was videos of the Drone Racing League in America that got me thinking ‘this is pretty cool.’ Building a drone with a small camera that feeds to a pair of goggles, controlling those at high speed and racing against other people all caught my interest,” Zak explains.
“I used to play rugby in the Army and I couldn’t do that anymore with my knee injuries so I was looking for another sport. The Army Drone Racing had just started up, so it was a fantastic opportunity to get into it.
”A year later Zak was posted back to Townsville where he helped develop the local FPV drone community into a fully-fledged club, Townsville FPVR. Once members and a location had been established another problem arose: access to parts and repairs.
“Guys practising on Wednesday or Thursday might smash their drone up and on Friday night or Saturday mornings they’d say they wouldn’t be able to race that weekend,” Zak says.
“The closest parts store was Brisbane and even with overnight shipping, parts weren’t getting here on time. So, after speaking with my wife, we put around $900 into stock. We sold all of that in around two weeks.”
Demand increased, stock inventory grew and thus Rising Sun FPV was established, named after the Rising Sun badge as a homage to Zak’s time in the ADF. A makeshift shopfront was installed in the garage of Zak’s home by the time he was medically discharged from service.
“I went to Bunnings, bought carpet, logos were painted on the walls, and I really tried to transform this two-car garage into somewhere that looked normal on the outside, but you’d walk in and there were drones on the walls, 3D printers doing their thing… it was like wow!” continues Zak.
“It did get to the point where I had to tell my neighbours what was going on, because people would leave the house with little brown bags at all hours of the day!”
Creating Rising Sun FPV and 3D enabled Zak to keep supporting the Defence community by offering Defence discounts and sponsoring the Army Drone Racing team. While there is currently no official Defence contract in place, Rising Sun also supplies services to the Army through printing RC-grade accessories for target practice. However, it’s not something that is completely off the radar for Zak.
“At the moment with the capacity we’re in, we’re not a military contracting business. Maybe one day, as we keep growing, it’s something we can consider. We’ve definitely had ideas for designing things, we have the know-how and the equipment but right now isn’t the time.”
The business has given Zak purpose since his medical discharge saying, “towards the end of being in the military, you can sit there and think ‘this is painful, I’m not getting challenged.’ Whereas now, there’s something different every day and the customers you meet, everyone has a different background and brings something different to the business.”
Image credit: Phil Copp Photos
