Author: Jonah Siekmann

It’s been a while since we updated this blog on the drone build progress, but today the last part came in and the drone is officially flying! We still have to mount the RFID/GPS stack, so it’s not autonomous, but it’s flying very smoothly.

For the drone, we used:

CC3D Flight Controller

750kv 28-30 motors

30A SimonK ESCs

11″ propellors

5000mAh 4s 25c battery

Flysky T6 transmitter/receiver

S500 frame

Here is a short video showing part of its maiden flight:

Also, you may recall in the last drone update, we documented an issue where the Arduino Uno microcontroller would shut off mid-flight – this was because of a faulty UBEC that wasn’t supplying a steady 5v, forcing the Arduino’s internal regulator to work overtime and thus overheating. Replacing the UBEC solved the issue. 

Now, we just have to program the autonomous navigation portion of the drone and mount the Arduino/RFID/GPS stack.