School Drone build

[Xcbarny]

Hi all

I'm a high school technology teacher, and would like to do a drone build with some of my students as part of an Engineering club.
The plan is to buy all the electronic components, and then design and 3D print the frame.

I would like the drone to have things such as altitude hold and return to home, so that it is easier for students to fly (any other suggestions).
I'm wondering if it would be easier to by a cheaper Eachine ready made drone, and strip the parts out of it, but I would also prefer the connections to have plugs rather that solder together, so that it is easier for me to disassemble.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm starting with trying to find a flight controller that will give me the altitude hold and RTH features that I am looking for.
Thanks.

 

[wafflejock]

Hi all

I'm a high school technology teacher, and would like to do a drone build with some of my students as part of an Engineering club.
The plan is to buy all the electronic components, and then design and 3D print the frame.

I would like the drone to have things such as altitude hold and return to home, so that it is easier for students to fly (any other suggestions).
I'm wondering if it would be easier to by a cheaper Eachine ready made drone, and strip the parts out of it, but I would also prefer the connections to have plugs rather that solder together, so that it is easier for me to disassemble.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm starting with trying to find a flight controller that will give me the altitude hold and RTH features that I am looking for.
Thanks.

I'd suggest soldering is required skill and a part of learning to build and diagnose/fix problems that is more beneficial than anything else the kids would learn by buying an off the shelf product. What is the focus of the class? If it is physics then electronics and soldering fit right in there can talk about resistance of connections check things with multimeters and talk about heat transfer etc. If you teach kids it needs to have the right proprietary plug to work with other devices you are just teaching them to buy into "ecosystems" developed by companies not really how things work.

 

[wafflejock]

Thinking about this more I get the concern with giving kids access to tools like this that have potential for harm (burning primarily here), but also recall working in a wood shop in school and dissecting frogs and pigs so I think this could be handled in a similar way, not every kid needs to hold the scalpel can have groups so more hands on coordinated kids can try to handle the iron and more cerebral kids can observe and take notes/record readings.

 

[Xcbarny]

I'd suggest soldering is required skill and a part of learning to build and diagnose/fix problems that is more beneficial than anything else the kids would learn by buying an off the shelf product. What is the focus of the class? If it is physics then electronics and soldering fit right in there can talk about resistance of connections check things with multimeters and talk about heat transfer etc. If you teach kids it needs to have the right proprietary plug to work with other devices you are just teaching them to buy into "ecosystems" developed by companies not really how things work.

Reason I want plug in, is for the kit to be reusable between a number of students 3D designs.
It'll be too expensive for me to let the students take it home once they've built it (unless they pay for the components).
This project will be for an after school engineering club. The kids already learn soldering on their curriculum projects.
I have previously bought components to build a syma xc5 drone, but the flight controllers didn't have a lot of room for error to get the connections soldered.

 

[Xcbarny]

Thinking about this more I get the concern with giving kids access to tools like this that have potential for harm (burning primarily here), but also recall working in a wood shop in school and dissecting frogs and pigs so I think this could be handled in a similar way, not every kid needs to hold the scalpel can have groups so more hands on coordinated kids can try to handle the iron and more cerebral kids can observe and take notes/record readings.

Kids get access to soldering irons, and lots of other machines which could harm them.
We do risk analysis for each class, give lots of instruction, and watch them closely.
Any intentional misuse will result in them losing their machine use privileges.

 

[wafflejock]

Gotcha yah wasn't suggesting you hand out quads to every kid or buy and solder the components every time so long as the phase wires are left long enough you can just hang bullet connectors off the esc so it's easy enough to pull basically the full stack of fc and esc off of one quad and put it on another. Any betaflight compatible stack uses open source software that can be flashed and does angle hold mode and acro mode well, if you wanted to add gps then would be better off looking at iNav compatible hardware (some FC boards will work with either firmware). ESCs and motors are likely to get smoked so would just make sure those components are easy to swap just use bullet and or mr-60 or xt-60/xt-30 etc. to make things swappable IMO. You could try some random proprietary system and roll the dice that it works well enough but think should look for easy to replace and source parts instead of being locked into some vendor and SOL when they disappear or change product lines etc.

 

[Xcbarny]

Thanks for that. Hadn't thought about using connectors. Seems like a good option.

I'm thinking thay buying a Tyro 119 kit might be my best / cheapest option. Rather than buying the components sepetately?

 

[wafflejock]

Yah the cheap/fast solution is buy off the shelf:

Fast Good Cheap

You want a Fast, Good, and Cheap project?

fastgood.cheap

You get to pick 2 (play with the toggles )

The good/cheap solution is to build yourself from parts you pick, but is not a fast solution.
The fast/cheap solution is to buy something off the shelf, but probably not that good.
The fast/good solution is to buy something way nicer off the shelf (or parts) that has more room to upgrade/expand but is generally not cheap.

I don't have experience with the Tyro kit I've heard good and bad so it's probably okay for the price but I bet if you picked out a set of parts and could get some volume/school discount from a more local vendor (racedayquads.com and getfpv.com I believe are US based but look for local vendors where you are who might work with you could save a lot and get more quality components)

 

[Xcbarny]

I'm based in Australia, so don't think that there is much choice for a local supplier. I think AliExpress and banggood will be my best option.
I tried pricing the parts for the Tyro 119 without the frame, and it came out more expensive than buying the kit with the frame, so buying the kit seems like a good option. At this stage, with my lack of knowledge, this seems like the quickest solution for me - I don't have heaps of time to devote to this (just received a CNC router kit which I need to build and set up!).

If I can reduce my costs, then it increases my chances of getting this up and running sooner for my good students, just to see if there's enough interest, and it proves to be a good way to get positive exposure for our department.

 

[Xcbarny]

Would anyone know how many channels I would need for a transmitter / receiver for the Tyro 119? Looking for the cheapest reliable option.

 

[wafflejock]

Bare minimum 5 channels, 4 for control input aileron, throttle, rudder, elevator so that's 4 and to just control it and 5th channel for arming switch (you could use sticks to arm but not ideal). Most modern receivers will use sbus or some other one wire serial protocol that sends all the channels on one wire. The jumper t16 was a good deal but due to popularity is in short supply and so prices are jacked up a bit the T18 it's predecessor should be on market soon and cheaper. Nice thing with T16 is uses openTX and comes with a 4 in 1 transmitter module so can work with spektrum/dsm2/dsmx or frsky/d16/d8 modes so don't need to worry much about the receiver but maybe still a bit out of price range if so I hear the flysky tx and rx can be good for the price.

 

[wafflejock]

I'd also say keep in mind if using fpv gear you'll be limited to about 8 people in the air at a time maybe less to get good enough distance between the video channels if just flying line of sight should be able to get hundreds of models in the air (see flite fest from the flite test YouTube channel)

 

[wafflejock]

Actually jb just put out a vid on the radiomaster T16 vs older jumper t16 and upcoming T18