Maybe I missed it, but contra the title, I did not see any robots flying in the TED venue. Since I've seen most of these other vids (but not that), that's what I was looking for :(
On of the students is carrying an RC remote when he comes on stage at the end.
It would be very hard to fly these little guys autonomously at TED, since they use the off-board Vicon multi-camera IR motion-tracking system in their control loop. That's a big, expensive installation in the lab.
Kumar's group is very well respected in the field. They've had several years of strong innovation. Vijay is really good at what he does, and a nice guy.
It might have been too much effort to set up the multi-camera Vicon motion capture system at TED, calibrate it, etc.
And unless they put them inside an aviary, which would also obscure the drones, I'd be a little worried about losing control of a machine with several exposed spinning blades in an auditorium full of people.
