Mechanical

The mechanical team is responsible for designing and fabricating airframes, test rigs, and additional hardware such as ground stations, gimbals, cases, and competition-specific equipment. We use SolidWorks, an industry-standard tool for 3D computer-aided design. Our hands-on work involves 3D printing, laser-cutting, water-jetting, CNC machining, milling, sheet metal work, and composites. Joining the mechanical team will give you plenty of hands-on experience in prototyping airframes.

The Mechanical subteam is responsible for the design and fabrication of airframes, test rigs, and additional hardware such as ground stations, gimbals, cases, and competition specific equipment. We use SolidWorks, an industry standard tool for 3D CAD, and our hands-on work involves 3D printing, laser-cutting, water-jetting, CNC machining, milling, sheet metal work, and composites. Joining the mech team will give you plenty of hands on experience in prototyping airframes.

Electrical

The electrical team is responsible for drone harnessing, custom carrier boards, the RF suite, and ensuring that all electrical components on the drone are ready for flight. You can gain experience designing and validating industry-relevant projects such as custom sensor carrier boards, STM32 breakout boards, Nucleo shields, RF design and analysis, RF testing, power delivery harnesses, and power monitors. As part of the electrical team, you'll blend theory and design while gaining hands-on experience by assembling and validating your work!

The EE subteam creates industry-relevant aircraft circuit boards and performs electrical testing on different parts of the drone to help ensure we are ready for flight. Some examples of current PCBs being developed and assembled are Zeropilot 3.0 flight controller, BLDC motor controller, and buck/boost converters contributing to our power architecture. The EE team provides a great balance between learning circuit theory and design, as well as hands-on experience with lab equipment! 

Operations

The operations team is responsible for managing the team's finances, sponsors, competition logistics, socials, recruiting, and branding. Our team manages a diverse portfolio to ensure the technical teams have sufficient resources to meet their project deliverables. We are also responsible for managing internal and external communications to facilitate the transfer of information between project groups and sponsors. Joining the operations team gives you an overarching idea of the logistics behind running a design team.

The operations team is in charge of managing the team's finances, sponsors, competition logistics, socials, recruiting and brand/marketing. We utilize graphics tools like Canva to create merch for the team and content for our social media. We also maintain this website you are currently viewing! Joining operations gives you an overarching idea of the logistics behind running a team.

Embedded Flight Software

The Embedded Flight Software team is responsible for all avionics-related software and firmware and is the "glue" that brings all teams together. As part of the firmware team, students learn about driver and sensor development, bring-up, validation, and standard communication protocols such as I2C, SPI, and UART. Firmware team members also learn about using tools such as oscilloscopes, soldering irons, function generators, and power supplies. As part of the firmware team, students learn to solve innovative problems about attitude management, path planning, communication, multi-threading and concurrency, resource management and interfacing with our firmware OS layer.

Embedded Flight Software is the sub-team responsible for all avionics-related software and firmware, and is the software "glue" that brings all subteams together.As part of the firmware team, students learn about driver & sensor development, bring-up, and validation, as well as common communication protocols such as I2C, SPI, and UART. Firmware team members also learn about using tools such as oscilliscopes, soldering irons, function generators, and power supplies.As part of the software team, students learn to solve innovative problems pertaining to attitude management, path planning, communication, multi-threading & concurrency, as well as resource management & interfacing with our firmware OS layer.

Autonomy

The Autonomy sub-team is responsible for implementing the software to have our drone perform autonomous tasks. Our software processes information from sensors to collect information on detected targets and decides the drone's action given the situation. We develop and train object detection and classification models to identify particular ground targets using our onboard camera. Our team also works on writing code to chart the drone's flight path and our custom ground control station. By joining our team, you can learn to write code that tells the drone what to look for and where to go.

The Autonomy sub-team is responsible for implementing the programs that help the computer derive information from the image, video, and coordinate inputs. We develop and train object detection and classification models to identify ground targets using YOLO object detection model. You can contribute to non-ML-related projects such as our data-telemetry system, GUI for the drone, autonomous landing code, path optimization algorithm and autonomous flighting research. By joining our team, you can learn to write code that tells the drone what to look for and where to go.

The Autonomy sub-team is responsible for implementing the programs which help the computer derive information from the image, video, and coordinate inputs. We mainly develop and train object detection/classification models to identify particular targets (usually objects and people) using Pytorch (A Python machine learning framework) and YOLOv7object detection module. There are also non-ML related projects that you can contribute to from the team, such as a data-telemetry system, GUI for the drone, autonomous landing code, path optimization algorithm and autonomous flighting research. By joining our team, you will have the opportunity to write code that tells the drone what to look for and where to go.