What drove you to take part in the challenge?
Alex Powell (AP): I enjoy practical tasks and the challenge was a great way of doing that. The fact that you get to build a fully autonomous drone is pretty nice, and I also thought it would be a really great way of expanding my technical knowledge.
You really get into the nitty gritty of design, build and manufacture and I thought that would really benefit my future career in engineering.
Furqan (F): wanted to further my learning, and while I knew quite a bit about aerodynamic theory and airplane theory already, I didn’t know how control systems or UAVs worked, and working in a team where everyone is doing things but you have to interact with them all was a great experience and taught me a lot.
Daniel Hanvey (DH): There is so much information thrown at you during an engineering degree, to actually be able to apply it during your university career is quite rare. The challenge provides an opportunity to take all that knowledge you have built up at university and apply it and see it working in the real world.
Jonathan Cole (JC): I heard about the challenge and thought it looked like something that would give me the opportunity to design and manufacture something and then see it actually working, and that excited me.
Hemant Chudasma (HC): I wanted to put everything that I had learned during my university course into something that was practical and would actually be built and flown in a relatively short space of time. It sounded like a cool challenge that was unique and I have always enjoyed being in a team atmosphere and wanted a taste of it here. Where else can you say you built a drone and not keep it a secret
What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
F: Autonomous landing was a big challenge for the team to overcome, and one of the other big challenges was pushing the design to carry maximum payload. You can have a clever design, but if it doesn’t meet the spec and carry the required payload then you are doing it wrong.
DH: My technical role and dissertation focused on design of the take-off and landing system. Take off was relatively simple, but the landing was quite complicated because there were so many different variables.
We had to think about the type of landing we would be making and how we could incorporate all the different factors, so we had to determine the choice of sensor and landing gears as well as the different software parameters in the autopilot that we would use.
JC: The hardest part is integrating all of the different projects together. We had 12 team members all doing their individual projects, and then that all had to come together and actually create a drone.
The biggest lesson that can be learned from that is getting a very early-stage understanding of what everyone’s projects are, because it is very easy to lose sight and then start focusing on just what one person is doing and lose the bigger picture.
What did you learn most from your experiences?
AP: We learnt a lot of things during the challenge and dealing with stress was chief among them. The challenge works to some very tight deadlines and everything is dependent on external factors, such as weather when testing the flying, so things can get disrupted and the schedule pushed back.
I was the project manager of the group, so it also taught me a lot about how to manage a team and has massively helped my team working skills, which is of massive benefit in industry.
F: The biggest thing I learned from the challenge is working with other people in stressful situations. There were times when it was very full-on and intense, and we wanted to kill each other, but there were also times when we were all happy and winning the competition at the end was the perfect way to finish university.
We knew we had worked really hard for an entire year, and it made it all worth it.
DH: The biggest lesson was the importance of teamwork. I have done group projects at university before, but none at this level and everyone worked together so beautifully. It really showed that if you have a good team who gel really well and complement each other, then you can get some great results.
JC: The soft skills I learnt were probably one of my biggest areas of development. You’ve already done your groundwork in engineering while at university, so you are putting that in practice, but when it comes to working as a team it is all about working together towards the same goal.
How has the experience of taking part in the challenge helped you in your career?
HC: It has garnered a lot of interest. I was fortunate enough to go to the House of Lords to represent the team alongside current team members and here I met some individuals in the aviation field that I retain contact with moving forward.
F: The challenge has had a massive impact on my career. At every job interview I went to, this was the main topic of conversation – this was simply the biggest thing I did at university, and I was able to tell the interviewees about our success, the skills I learnt and how they are transferable into the workplace.
DH: I currently work as a robotics engineer, and there are some links with that to the autopilot work I did in the challenge. Autonomous engineering for robotics is now something I can definitely see myself doing as a career, and I am not sure that is something I would have considered if it weren’t for the autopilot work I completed for the challenge.
JC: I’m now a design engineer in the aerospace industry, and the challenge has definitely helped me in my career so far. I don’t work with drones anymore, but where it has really helped is with my integration with other people and how I work with different areas of the project all coming together as one.
How did it feel when you found out you had won the overall challenge?
AP: The team put in so many hours of blood, sweat and tears and in the final week we were only sleeping two hours a night. It was a great feeling in the end, but I think ultimately everyone was just so happy we had managed such a good flight.
I am very proud of the effort that everyone put in and delighted we were able to win.
F: None of us expected to win. We wanted to try our best, and we thought if we had a successful flight where we don’t crash we would have achieved what we wanted to, so winning really was the cherry on the top.
DH: Once our drone was up in the air and flying as if it was on a wire, it was an absolutely wonderful sight.
At the prize-giving I remember sat there watching team after team going up to pick up the different prizes and we were becoming a bit more despondent with each one. But to get that first prize was absolutely brilliant when it came and then to come away with three of the four top prizes, including grand champion, was an incredible feeling.
JC: It was absolutely fantastic to win, and something we had all been dreaming of because Bath had had some unlucky experiences in previous years. The biggest thing for us was that the aircraft performed so beautifully, and being given the overall champion prize was fantastic.
Would you recommend the challenge to current students?
AP: Absolutely. These challenges are really important for the engineering industry. A lot of the graduates I know have had little to no practical experience from university, and this project has been a massive help to me.
DH: The challenge is a massive opportunity. Even if you don’t have any interest in going into the aerospace industry yourself, which I don’t currently, you get to work with some exciting technology that allows you to apply a lot of the different skills that you learnt at university.
To be able to work with people who have a different outlook on engineering meant that we were able to learn a lot from each other.
And what advice would you give to those taking part in the future?
AP: My advice would be to be prepared for stress – it is a very intensive process and involves designing something almost from scratch all the way through manufacturing to a very tight deadline.
You have to be prepared for that, but if you do it it will be one of the best experiences of your life.
F: Devote yourself to the challenge – it does get challenging and there will be times when you feel like giving up, but in the end, it is worth it and you don’t have that much to lose. It will be a great experience, and something you remember for a very long time.
JC: Get involved as early as possible and go in with an open mind willing to take on other people’s ideas and bounce ideas off each other to come up with a concept that suits the ultimate purpose of the drone.
If you go in with a close mind you will end up stuck on a single idea, and that may not be the best for the project.