Signage Shop Challenge

To the Flite Test Community;

Looking for a cheap alternative to create a racing quad to practice on before moving to the real thing? Well we might have a solution, especially when it comes to dealing with a large class size off students.  We came across an awesome rc enthusiast named Peter Stranathan, president of a company called Visbility Signage out here local to us, check what they are all about:

We got in contact with Peter and asked if he had any scrap materials from his shop, this simple question led to a conversation about rc flight, and from there it was immediate friendship! He is a Flite Tester, the community is growing, so you know he knew exactlty what we were looking for.  What Peter normally throws away into recycling was considered gold to us, foam board, gator board, extruded PVC, plastics, acrylics, you name it, he had scrap piles of it.  We loaded up, took it back to the students and immediately the wheels started turning as to what they can do with it.

Pic here discussing some ideas of what we can do with all the material.

Training quads were developed.

Laminate was used to protect the planes.

Racing quads

Snow racers!

Almost every time a student developed a project in our class they incorporated Peter's donated material. Second semester came and Peter threw out a couple challenges involving his scrap materials, the one that caught the eye of two designers was to create a racing quad out of assigned materials by him.  Two students took on that challenge and the story goes on from there.

Students talked about their designs and the process it took to get to the one they chose for their solution.

We used the CAD Basics 2 Multirotor Design Lesson from www.ftstem.com 

We used the Inventables CNC router along with software to produce the bottom plate of the quads.

Shot here of the router getting ready for cutting.

Trenton's complete build

Tylers complete build.

After designing and creating their quads it was time for practice, hours of sim time and flight time went into preparation for the big race day challenge. With the last week of school approaching, it was time to test the students solution in the big race with Peter getting front row seats to watching the whole thing.

Peter presenting the big checks to the winners!

Now did they hold up, Trenton's no, but Tyler was able to fix his and continue flying after this event. The challenge was a great success, the 8th graders got to tackle one more problem using the Design Thinking method, design and develop their own quad design, learn the electronics, and flying! I am sure that cash went right back into the hobby! 

There is no way we could have afforded all this material, Peter and his company came through in a big way, not just donating scrap, but getting involved and making a difference.  To Peter we "THANK YOU" and we look forward to working together in the future.

So if you are a teacher out there and need some help acquiring materials for student creations, look no further then a local signage shop for some scraps.  Who knows, they might be a Flite Test fan and your set for an awesome partnership.

Trenton's and Tyler's quad plans coming soon, check into: http://www.mesarc.club/ 

Thank you for all your support, 

The MESArc Team

An FT STEM Top Flight School