How to Fly -- Keli's Final Project

2/17/20:

I received my drone controller and Lipo batteries today. I am waiting for my drone kit to come in yet, and then I can start. Since I don't know much about drones, I am a little worried for this project but I think once I start I will be okay.

2/21/20:

I got my drone kit today and I am ready to start building my drone. I attached the propellers, but couldn't find a hex screwdriver head that would fit. After about 10 minutes we found one and I screwed the blades together.

2/25/20:

I am about to continue building my drone and I realized that I didn't put the one part on correctly so the holes don't line up for the screws to go into, so I have to take it apart and restart basically. I am that type of person to do that so I am just kind of annoyed at myself. I just finished screwing the blades in place.

3/19/20:

Due to the corona virus outbreak, we are not allowed to go back to school as of April 14th and because of that we have to do online classes. Today was our first virtual online class. Grace Lewis picked up my drone for me on Tuesday and is meeting me after classes tomorrow to pick it up. She was originally supposed to go to Lancaster, but now she isn't going, so we are just meeting in Carlisle (halfway for both of us) and I am picking up my drone from her. I must say I am a little worried about getting my drone done. Honestly, at this point I am very unmotivated so finding the motivation to work on my drone at home is going to be difficult. When I am in class at Mercersburg, I am used to having to go in and just work because that's the only thing I had to do in the space I was in. So far at home, I have been very distracted and therefore unmotivated.

I will be working on my drone in my dad's detached garage, because that is where my parents want me to work on it.

3/23/20: So plans had changed again, and we could only meet yesterday (Sunday) to pick up my drone. Because of this I didn't have the weekend to work on it like I had hoped. Now that I have the drone, I am planning on taking some photos that I will upload here, and then working on it the rest of the time.

I went to screw on this one plate type thing (photo below), and I realized I had all of the blades the wrong way, so I basically had to take it apart again and redo it all, so that's what I did the entire class today. I was very frustrated because I was trying to continue working so I can just get it done but this set me back a bit.

3/24/20: I finished screwing the plate on and am starting to solder the distribution board (I think that is what it is called). It is more difficult than I thought because I have to solder really small squares so it is hard not to get solder on the next one or anything so I don't mess it up. I don't have very much patience so it was a little tedious at first because I just wanted to get it done, but after a while I realized I was going to be there for a while and it became kind of relaxing. I then soldered a small yellow piece to the board which was just difficult to keep level while I soldered it so I had my mom hold it and put pressure on it so it would stay level while I soldered it. So basically, I just soldered the entire class period.

After looking at these photos on a larger screen, I have realized that I need to go back and fix some of my soldering, so I will be doing that next class.

3/30/20: I continued soldering another part of my drone. It is the flight controller board, and there are about 50 holes for me to solder. I watched the video and realized that I didn't need to solder all 50 as of now and I was very relieved. I only had to solder about 12 holes, but I had to be very precise because they were very close together. I had to rewatch the video multiple times to figure out specifically what holes he was soldering because it was a little confusing This took me the entire class period.

4/2/20: I began soldering 4 smaller pieces called ESCs. It took me a little bit to try to figure out what parts I was supposed to solder because the font is so small and it was hard to see exactly what holes he was pointing to, but I figured it out. It then took me the rest of class and a little longer after to solder the ESCs. This took me about 45 minutes to an hour when I thought it would take about 30 minutes.

4/6/20: Today I had to attach the motors. Two of the motors went counter clockwise and two went clockwise and every other one had to be the opposite direction. The front left and back right had to be going clockwise and the front right and back left had to go counter clockwise. They were pretty easy to screw in and took me like 15 minutes to screw in all 4 of them. I then went to attach the ESC board to the arms of the drone and realized that I needed to solder the edge of the area the motor would be attaching to and not just the top, so I had to go back and solder all the edges. They never directly told me to do that the first time, and it was hard to see on the video, so I kind wished they would've told me more specifically the first time.

4/9/20: I took double sided padded tape and measured it to the side of the ESCs, cut them, and then attached the ESCs to the arms of the drones between the motors and the center of the drone. Then I had to cut the motor wires a little bit because they were too long. After I cut them all to the proper length, I stripped the ends off and soldered the ends of the wires. I then soldered the wires to the ESC boards. I would start with the middle one and then do the outside wires so it was easier. This took me much longer than I had originally expected. I couldn't get them to attach. Many times It would just be me adding a bit of solder, but the solder would just solder the top of the wires instead of melting through to attach to the board. It was very frustrating and took up a lot of time that I could've used to move forward. I only did 2 of them today because it took me so long.

4/13/20: I attached the other 6 motor wires to their ESC boards and it went better than last time, but it still took a while to do. I then had to attach 8 wires from the ESC board to the central power distribution board. I tried for about 2.5 hours and managed to attach 1 wire. I was so frustrated. I don't know what I was doing wrong, but it refused to attach. At 10 pm, I gave up and decided to continue trying another time.

4/20/20: I couldn't touch my drone until now because the thought of my drone made me frustrated based on how it went last time. I have had no motivation to do it and finally talked myself into working on it today. After another 2.5 hours I attached 2 more wires. I had enough of it. I couldn't touch it anymore today. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but it is refusing to attach. I asked my dad if he had any tips or ideas of how this could go better and he didn't have any ideas.