Using quadrocopters and some rope, researchers have woven together a bridge strong enough to walk across.  Made at the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena in Switzerland, the bridge joins two scaffolds, and is the first full-scale load-bearing structure autonomously built by flying machines.

If you thought “SPARKED” – the new short film by Cirque du Soleil, ETH Zurich, and Verity Studios – is too real-looking to be CGI, you were right. But why go to all the trouble of using quadrotors to get those lampshades dancing in the air for real? We asked Bill Keays, Science and Technology Advisor at Cirque du Soleil, to give us an insider’s perspective about Cirque’s motivation for the film and how it came together.