Thank you to all our donors for making this crowd-funding launch such a success! We have currently raised nearly $11,000 and are more than 90% of the way toward reaching our goal of $12,000.

On Wednesday, CUAir partnered with College Mentors for Kids, a non-profit student organization at Cornell, in our first outreach event of the year! Team members showed local elementary school students real-world engineering applications through a presentation and demonstrations of several remote-control helicopters. Team members also helped each student build his/her own balsa wood plane. Check out a few pictures from the event on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/cornellunmannedairsystems. The business sub-team is working on setting up more outreach events with other local schools and community centers.

This week, the mechanical team also began constructing our first plane of the year.

"The mechanical sub-team has completed the design of our first plane and started construction. With the foam molds for the composite structure cut and primed, team members are working hard to layup the carbon fiber, fiberglass, and epoxy that compose our composite structure. Meanwhile, the final design of the antenna tracker is being finalized and construction will start shortly. Those working on the catapult are making slight design changes to the prototype as they work towards completing the final design."

--Nicholas Kok ’16 (Mechanical Sub-team Lead)

Thanks again to everyone for all the support! We’re looking forward to a great season!

Once again, thank you to everyone who has contributed to our crowd-funding campaign! We are 97% of the way towards reaching our goal of $12,000, with about two-and-a-half weeks to go. This past week, CUAir was featured in a local newspaper, The Ithaca Times. Check out the article and interview with Team Lead, Derek Faust ’15, here: http://www.ithaca.com/news/drones-overhead-cornell-students-crop-specialists-test-non-military-uses/article_7183e420-6a88-11e4-b457-57190245e463.html

This week, the autopilot sub-team held its first test flight of the season.

The autopilot team had its first test flight this weekend, which tested the autopilot’s testbed (a Bix 3) and some of the primitive autopilot features. We were able to stabilize the aircraft in moderate-high wind conditions, as well as adjust the stabilization parameters in real time from the ground. We were also able to perform a Loiter - circling around a point - in moderate-high wind conditions. We will soon test automatic takeoff and landing as well as our two-stage failsafe procedure. 

— Samuel Rosenstein ’17 (Autopilot Sub-team Lead)

Look out for video footage of test flights on our YouTube channel and Facebook page! We will be posting footage throughout the season.

Also this week, the electrical sub-team continued making changes on the gimbal controller, which controls and stabilizes the on-board camera, among other projects:

The electrical team is currently working on the second version of the gimbal controller, which consists of changing the system architecture of the gimbal completely. In addition to this, we are finishing up the board for the antenna tracker and continuing to design the power board.

— Kevin Wang ’15 (Electrical Sub-team Lead)

Please continue to spread the word about our campaign as we near our goal. Thank you to all CUAir supporters for believing in us and helping us to achieve great things!

Happy Holidays from CUAir! We hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday with friends and loved ones. We are happy to announce that we have fulfilled our goal of $12,000! And there isn’t a better day to have done this than on Thanksgiving Day! Please check out the video message from our team below.

Although we’ve reached our goal, our crowd funding campaign is still ongoing through December 5th! Please continue to share our campaign with your friends and family. Thank you to all CUAir supporters—we couldn’t have done it without you!