Live in Cape Town? You can check out these autonomous quadrocopters in person

Over the past few years there have been plenty of videos floating around online showing quadrocopters doing incredibly cool things, like playing the James Bond theme.

In a lot of cases, the videos purport to show drones operating autonomously but it’s always a little bit difficult to fully believe unless you can see them in person.

Well, if you live in Cape Town, South Africa you can do just that. There is a free demo on 29 August at 16:00 at the CTICC, where a team of roboticists from Zurich will show how these machines dance, build towers, catch balls and juggle poles – like a boss.

The radio commands that instruct the high-speed machines are transmitted at 50 times per second, while the quadrocopters can accelerate at 15 meters per second squared, and flip 2000 degrees per second, yet balance objects and hover perfectly. During their demonstration, up to six machines will fly at any one time — each about 50cm in diameter and only weighing 500g.