How a South Jersey company pulled off an Eagles drone show
PENNSAUKEN, N.J. (CBS) -- New technology and a dream built after college is now taking flight. You saw their work high above the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, mesmerizing Eagles fans before the NFC championship game.
Now we are meeting the founders of Verge Aero, the local company that designed the impressive drone show. The co-founders of the company have known each other for years. They're all local guys.
They've done a drone show for President Joe Biden and traveled around the world.
Inside their office in South Jersey, they're describing how they pulled off that impressive show for the Eagles. Get this, they only had a few days and never even had a rehearsal.
The Philly-bred start-up had 300 drones flying over the iconic Philadelphia Art Museum.
"It's not 300 people with controllers," Tony Samaritano said. "It's actually all done through a laptop."
"This is the GPS module," Chris Franzwa said. "That's what keeps it so accurate, where it's supposed to be at all times."
Samaritano and Franzwa both graduated from Rowan University and spent years writing the software from scratch that would eventually form artwork in the sky.
"I think when we started doing this we're like 'man it would be crazy if someday we were doing something for the Eagles,'" Franzwa said. "And it happened."
Samaritano and Franzwa only had a week to build the show after the Eagles defeated the Giants. They spent hours designing the choreography and the lighting cues.
The software puts the drones in the right places at the right time, spelling out "It's a Philly thing" in the air. The drone's path also forms the Eagles logo and interactive 3D content.
"We do almost nothing when they're in the air other than just make sure everything is going OK," Samaritano said.
Verge Aero has now put on shows all around the world. They're still developing software and pushing the envelope taking their dream to new heights.
"Our dream is that someday this is as commonplace as fireworks," Franzwa said.
The co-founders say they only get about two weeks' notice before a show. They've used more than 1,000 drones before and say there's no reason why they can't incorporate up to 5,000 drones.
So far, they haven't been asked to do a show before the Super Bowl, so we are crossing our fingers.
