Aviation Club
A club I co-founded in 9th grade to build rockets and drones. It has more than 40 members now.
- Role
- Co-founder, co-president & lead hardware engineer
- When
- 2023–present
- Links
- 40+members
- 3PTSA grants
- 5drones in the swarm
The club
Some friends and I started the Aviation Club in 9th grade. It has grown to more than 40 members, and the school’s PTSA has given us a grant three years in a row.
Rockets
We compete in the American Rocketry Challenge. The rocket has to carry eggs up to a set altitude and bring them back down without breaking them. Everyone in the club designs a rocket in a simulator, we vote on the best one, and then we build it together.
Our first launch went well. On the second one, the rocket went off course and crashed.
MaxTac
MaxTac is a quadcopter we designed and built ourselves. We used simulations to pick motors, propellers and a battery that would give enough thrust and flight time. Then we designed the frame in CAD and built it in the school’s engineering lab.
It has a camera that streams live video to the ground, and it first flew over the school stadium in spring 2026. Next, we want to use it to reach an injured person and have a medical AI model describe the injury to responders.
Drone swarm
I’m also designing the electronics for five small drones that will map a room together. Each drone has a main board with the microcontroller and sensors, a power board for the motors and battery, and distance sensors pointing in every direction.
Each drone keeps itself stable on its own. A laptop collects what all of them see over Wi-Fi, combines it into one map, and tells each drone where to go next. They should weigh about 85 grams and fly for around 10 minutes. The board designs are done, and we’re getting ready to order them.
More images
