Design Competition For High School Students
A Drone Design Competition for Aspiring Aviation & Aerospace High School Upperclassmen
Competition Principles
Advanced High School Team Competition
Sportsmanship Emphasized
Drone Delivery Challenge
Autonomous and Teleoperation Challenges
Low Cost Entrance
Engineering Design Competition
Community Supported Open Source Drone
Authentic Outdoor Challenges Utilizing GPS, Compass, etc.
Realistic Lift Capacity For Delivery of 10 oz Payload
Rules of Engagement
Drone Hardware
- Compatible flight controller (FC) that supports the PX4 or Ardupilot firmware
- Drone frame size (400mm – 600mm diagonal from motor shaft to motor shaft)
- Max of 4 propellers
- Arm and Pre-arm switches mandatory
- Battery range 3s (11.1V) or 4s (14.8V)
- FPV Cameras and monitor
- Forward facing
- Downward facing
- Multi-camer configuration
- Gimbals, if applicable
- Transmitters
- Remote control with at least 8 channels – 2.4 GHz
- Radio telemetry – 915 Mhz
- Video Transmitter (VTX) – 5.8 GHz
- Drones must be able to delivery several payloads and remain in the air for the maximum mission duration of five (5) minutes
Recommended Hardware Vendors and Stock Kits
- onPoynt Drone Solutions – onpoynt.com
- HolyBro – www.holybro.com
- NXP – www.nxp.com
Ground Control Stations (GCS)
- QGroundControl – qgroundcontrol.com/
- Windows, Mac, Linux
- MissionPlanner – ardupilot.org/planner/
- Windows Only
Safety Precautions
- Lipo battery storage bags
- Propellers removed when working on the drone
- Safety goggles recommended when working with the drone
- Gloves should be on hand, if needed
- Return-to-land & Flight termination
- UAV must have either autonomous return to home/land (RTH . RTL) enabled for flight termination
- These must be configured with the location specified in the Mission Flight Boundard appendix
- Both must be activated by a safety pilot and the ground station
- After 30 seconds of communication loss, the aircraft must automatically RTH / RTL
- Geofence activated on all missions and flights
- Pilot-In-Charge (PIC) with Part 107 certification
- If a team does not have a licensed Part 107 PIC, anyone at the competition with a Part 107 can act as the team PIC, if willing to do so
See Full Document For Missions & Awards
Competition Regions
