My 2015 Drone Build
Building a Drone in 2015
Posted July 2024
In 2015, when I was 16, I fell down a rabbit hole on the Flitetest Youtube Channel. In particular, they posted a video of nested delivery drones that I’ve probably watched over 100 times. I decided to build a drone of my own.
The landscape of hobby drone parts was very different in 2015 than it is now. That being said, there were enough plug-and-play components for a straight forward build. Those components are detailed in the engineering journal below.
A story I love to share is the first time I ever flew this drone, it immediately flipped over and caught fire, while one of the propellors gashed my hand. I can confidently say I had one of the worst possible first flights in drone history, and I was still hooked (it flew fine later that day).
My Engineering Journal
I’m attaching the unedited version of the Engineering Journal I created through the build. I think it’s always cool to see old writing, and seeing how your engineering process changes over the years. There is a tremendous amount of missing details in this journal that is funny to look back at. I’ve definitely gotten better at writing these kinds of things since I was 16.