FPV Drones

Since I was 15, I have been tinkering with drones, motivated by the videos I had seen online of First-Person-View (FPV) quadcopters being flown miles from their pilots with near flawless video being fed back to a headset worn by the pilot. Over the years, as I was able to afford new parts and build on more powerful frames, I upgraded from a cheap, plastic toy drone to a carbon-fiber frame, 5-inch class quadcopter (top right), with brushless motors and a 1000mW 2.4 GHz transmitter onboard. After numerous crashes and countlesss repairs, the drone, which I had initially bought prebuilt, did not have a single identical part to its ancestor, essentially a "quadcopter of Theseus" from all the upgrades I had done. I also delved into micro-quads, which, being light and agile, I was able to fly indoors safely, adding a level of convenience to my hobby.

With all the enjoyment I'd gotten out of the FPV hobby, I, and a good friend of mine, decided to found an Aerial Technology club, with the intent of teaching members about the fundamentals and basic physics of drone dynamics, quadcopter design and construction, and FPV flight using a radio controller. In doing so, we brought a lot of young people from our school into the hobby and exposed them to the potential of UAVS as a potential field of academic and professional interest.