Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
You may or may not know, but I am not the 40 year old man my profile picture suggests I may be. I'm actually one of the younger members on this forum. I have spent the last four years in college and this month I graduated with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. It has been a wild ride, but one I am thankful for having taken.

Here is a little story:

My familiarity with FT and presence on this forum began four and a half years ago when I wanted to learn how to build a quadcopter for a senior project in high school. I started off flying planes like the FT Versa and FT Simple Soarer, in order to learn basic flight skills before moving on to building and flying my own quadcopter. The project was mostly a success and I graduated high school. It was 2014. A year later is was 2015, I was in college, and the miniquad craze began. I was alone in this hobby for three years, and being away at school stopped me from flying for months at a time. Then this past fall everything changed.

In mid October, I happened to stumble upon the very first meeting for a new drone club at our school. Besides myself, there was only one other student who had flown before. He had brought his Armattan Chameleon and we (~10) all rushed outside to see him fly it (I did not have my gear at school). While I had plenty of experience flying, at that moment I felt like one in the rest of the crowd, at awe from the flips and tricks he was doing. A week later we had a third member who had a quad to fly, and then a fourth, and then a fifth...I had no idea home many people at my school shared this hobby. For the first few weeks I still did not have my gear so I stood outside in freezing temperatures watching line of sight at these guys flying FPV. And I was having the most fun in the hobby I have ever had.

Come February I had my quads with me at school, and we decided to try to qualify for the Collegiate Drone Racing Association (CDRA) national race. With the exception of one of us, we had no racing experience. So we decided to hit the home improvement store and build some gates. Every Saturday morning we hijacked a field and set up a course to record our times. There was six inches of snow on the ground and it was freezing, but we were committed to qualify. We are engineering students after all, so some conformal coat and an excuse not to do homework is all we needed. We kept submitting our best times and by March we learned we had successfully qualified for the national competition.

So in April, five club members and I traveled to Purdue University to participate in the CDRA nationals race. You may have listened to the podcast with the guys from University of North Dakota traveling to the same event. It was my first official race, and I was the only guy flying a 6" quad, as an homage to the old days. Our school placed about middle of the pack, which we were happy with considering we had only just started two months before. After that competition we became closer as a club and as friends. As the weather warmed up we flew more freestyle, tried new tricks, and learned off each other.

Now the semester is over and I am a college graduate. I am not going to see those guys as often anymore, but I am already looking forward to visiting the club next fall. Overall I am extremely thankful for the club and everyone in it. I have had more fun flying multirotors with them in the past six months than in my previous years combined.

I decided to make a little tribute video to my time in the club. I used what little hd footage I had from the previous months and recorded some new footage before I left the campus. I tried to include every major trick we tried and some of the major moments we experienced. What I ended up with is a video that will hold a special place in my heart for a long time.


I am not quite sure what is next, but I'm not stopping this hobby anytime soon.

Sam

DroneGroup.jpg
 
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French

Construire Voler S'écraser Répéter
So awesome, Snarls! Not only on your graduation, but also your impact on the school by helping form a flying club and you impact on your other club members.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Caught the vid last night when I was checkin who posted new stuff. What a great edit. Just gettin back in the hobby and already doin Matty flips!! But that forever inverted yaw spin around the pole.... Great progress my friend.

Congrats on graduation too.... now get yer butt to work!!! SLACKER!!!
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Thank you all. I'm excited to continue seeing where this hobby brings me and to bring you some more videos. I forgot how enjoyable it is to make and release videos, but also overall to just enjoy flying without the pressure of filming.
 

War Chest

Member
You may or may not know, but I am not the 40 year old man my profile picture suggests I may be. I'm actually one of the younger members on this forum. I have spent the last four years in college and this month I graduated with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. It has been a wild ride, but one I am thankful for having taken.

Here is a little story:

My familiarity with FT and presence on this forum began four and a half years ago when I wanted to learn how to build a quadcopter for a senior project in high school. I started off flying planes like the FT Versa and FT Simple Soarer, in order to learn basic flight skills before moving on to building and flying my own quadcopter. The project was mostly a success and I graduated high school. It was 2014. A year later is was 2015, I was in college, and the miniquad craze began. I was alone in this hobby for three years, and being away at school stopped me from flying for months at a time. Then this past fall everything changed.

In mid October, I happened to stumble upon the very first meeting for a new drone club at our school. Besides myself, there was only one other student who had flown before. He had brought his Armattan Chameleon and we (~10) all rushed outside to see him fly it (I did not have my gear at school). While I had plenty of experience flying, at that moment I felt like one in the rest of the crowd, at awe from the flips and tricks he was doing. A week later we had a third member who had a quad to fly, and then a fourth, and then a fifth...I had no idea home many people at my school shared this hobby. For the first few weeks I still did not have my gear so I stood outside in freezing temperatures watching line of sight at these guys flying FPV. And I was having the most fun in the hobby I have ever had.

Come February I had my quads with me at school, and we decided to try to qualify for the Collegiate Drone Racing Association (CDRA) national race. With the exception of one of us, we had no racing experience. So we decided to hit the home improvement store and build some gates. Every Saturday morning we hijacked a field and set up a course to record our times. There was six inches of snow on the ground and it was freezing, but we were committed to qualify. We are engineering students after all, so some conformal coat and an excuse not to do homework is all we needed. We kept submitting our best times and by March we learned we had successfully qualified for the national competition.

So in April, five club members and I traveled to Purdue University to participate in the CDRA nationals race. You may have listened to the podcast with the guys from University of North Dakota traveling to the same event. It was my first official race, and I was the only guy flying a 6" quad, as an homage to the old days. Our school placed about middle of the pack, which we were happy with considering we had only just started two months before. After that competition we became closer as a club and as friends. As the weather warmed up we flew more freestyle, tried new tricks, and learned off each other.

Now the semester is over and I am a college graduate. I am not going to see those guys as often anymore, but I am already looking forward to visiting the club next fall. Overall I am extremely thankful for the club and everyone in it. I have had more fun flying multirotors with them in the past six months than in my previous years combined.

I decided to make a little tribute video to my time in the club. I used what little hd footage I had from the previous months and recorded some new footage before I left the campus. I tried to include every major trick we tried and some of the major moments we experienced. What I ended up with is a video that will hold a special place in my heart for a long time.


I am not quite sure what is next, but I'm not stopping this hobby anytime soon.

Sam

View attachment 107872
Congratulations and nice flying mate