Weekly Update Meeting

Description

After the third lecture, we will begin having Weekly Update Meetings during the scheduled lecture time, instead of a full 110 minute lecture. During this time, you are expected to present a 10 minute, 3-slide update presentation on your progress that week to share with the instructors.

Lecture Slides

Slides

Requirements and Grading

There are no points directly associated with the Weekly Update Meeting, but attendance is mandatory and missed attendance will be considered for the teamwork score.

Submission and Deadlines

Nothing needs to be submitted on the course website. Your whole team just needs to be present at each of the weekly update meetings, and each team member must speak (at least for their own work).

Propeller-less Multi-rotor

Featured Project

Our project explored the every-expanding field of drones. We wanted to solve a problem with the dangers of plastic propellers as well as explore new method of propulsion for drones.

Our design uses a centrifugal fan design inspired by Samm Shepard's "This is NOT a Propeller" video where he created a centrifugal fan for a radio controlled plane. We were able to design a fan that has a peak output of 550g per fan that is safe when crashing and when the impeller inside damaged.

The chassis and fans are made of laser-cut polystyrene and is powered using brushless motors typically used for radio-controlled helicopters.

The drone uses an Arduino DUE with a custom shield and a PCB to control the system via Electronic Speed Controllers. The drone also has a feedback loop that will try to level the drone using a MPU6050.

We were able to prove that this method of drone propulsion is possible and is safer than using hard plastic propellers.