For Nishank Mishra, who has freelanced as a web developer since 2011, the skies were beckoning. “In a middle class family, the chance to learn something new after graduation is not available. You do your job and start earning,” he says. His father retired as assistant engineer with the Public Works Department; his mother is a homemaker and his elder brother works in bank operations. But, Mishra was stung by the aeromodelling bug. He began saving money, sparing time and buying parts. “Slowly and gradually, I built my own drone, a 1.8 kg quadcopter fitted with a GoPro camera, and took it on a test drive to shoot the lakes of Nainital,” says Mishra about last year’s experiment.