Entry #1 WTF - How Do You Build A Drone?

What do you need to build a quad copter drone?

The answer to that question is still an unknown for me.
But I am finding out. And you can find out with me.

A couple of months ago I watched these two videos: Quadcopter Racing with First Person Video!  and How to Build a FPV Racing Quadcopter! on the  Tested Channel on YouTube.

I was intrigued*. I'm a photographer and interested in videography. Drones have taken those communities by storm and I'd picked up some casual knowledge about drones from those communities.

But although I am a photographer I decided against building a drone as photography platform - at least in the first instance.
The reason for that decision is that the affordable camera platform drones are so (relatively) easy to use  that I see drone photography platforms as kinda boring in themselves. The photographic results can be spectacular, but the actual flying involved looks kinda boring and sedate, so I'd never really considered a drone for photographic purposes to be interesting from the drone point of view.

But after seeing those Tested videos I saw a whole lot more detail about the world of FPV racing drones.
That was a world I sort of knew existed but new little about.
It looked fun and exciting and very tech oriented which appeals to the geek in me.
I was surprised from the build video how relatively easy it was to build a drone.

I did a little more investigation and was initially put off by the cost.
At first I figured it would cost $1500-$2000AUD to built a nice FPV kit. At that point I was looking at all the brand name kit.
But I researched a bit more and found out that in reality most drone components are now commodities. You can buy serviceable components from banggood, ebay and other online markets.
If you build them yourself and don't use branded products you can probably get a decent FPV set up for $500AUD.

That settled it.

I decided that like Charpu I too wanted to build and fly an FPV (first person video) racing drone. Even if I never actually race it.
And maybe I'll leave the FPV part out of the first iteration due to cost.

I started proper in-depth research about a month or a bit longer ago into the components of a drone and how they fit and work together.
Since then I went from pretty much no real knowledge about drones to confident I can build one and maybe even order the right parts.

I've decided that I am going to build a racing quad. It will eventually have FPV but for now I am going to forgo the FPV and spend a little more on the drone itself.

So to put it succinctly, I'm a total newbie and don't really know what I am doing, but I am going to learn and this blog is part of my learning process.
I'm a very word/verbal oriented person and I've found for me writing stuff down helps me remember stuff, organise and work through information and eventually understand and solve problems.

I started off just wanting a place I could publish a list of components and links for building a drone but that lead to me wanting to organise the list, which lead to me thinking about all the info I've learned in the last month or so and starting to organise it.

The reason I am publishing it is because I could not find a one stop place that had all the info I wanted in one place so I am going to record everything I've learnt that I am going record here and hope that it is helpful for other people later.

*Addendenum: I forgot to mention Team Blacksheep I saw these guys a few years ago, but although I admired the tech and skill though FPV RC would be totally un-obtainable cost wise.
But really these are the guys who first showed me the possibility of the tech.