Workshops/Introduction to UAV

This workshop will consist of a talk that covers all the background information that you need to know to get started with [micro- and mini-UAVs], a live demo, and Q&A. This is aimed at anyone interested in building or flying micro-UAVs, no experience in flying, coding, or building is necessary. By the end of this workshop you will know everything you need to know in order to get started with your own micro-UAVs.

Universal Air Ltd. will be running a workshop on the aerodynamic, mechanical, electronic and software aspects of quadcopter/micro UAV construction and flight at the London Hackspace on the 24th of September at 10am.

Yuan Gao and Henry Fletcher will present and teach material based loosely on the agenda laid out below, provision will be made for exploring certain areas in more detail if particular interest is expressed by participants. Universal Air Ltd. will record the workshop and publish it online as part of a video tutorial, we will ensure all participants are happy with this; else face blurring and voice changing will be used to maintain individuals’ anonymity.

The main part of the workshop will be a fully interactive, high speed run through of how you’d go about building a quadcopter from scratch but we can cover other types of aircraft if you want to know more!

For now please remember those pressing questions for later!

9:30 Henry and Yuan introduce Universal Air, who we are, what we do et.c.

9:35 Henry provides an overview of the mechanics and aerodynamics of quadcopters.

9:40 Yuan gives a brief overview of the electronics and software

From here onwards, feel free to ask questions whenever you think them up!

9:45 What does it need to do? – How big does it need to be? – What motors do I need? – What dimensions should my props be? Henry goes over how to make the first decisions; everyone comes up with a preliminary specification.

10:10 Aesthetics vs Strength – Carbon Fibre vs Aluminium – Where the design process often goes wrong. Henry discusses some of the key steps in airframe design, everyone comes up with a roughly dimensioned final concept, group votes on the best concept, Henry has deciding vote in case of a tie, highest scorer gets a prototype ROFL frame!

11:50 CAD and the build process, what machines you might need....how little equipment could you get away with? Henry briefly goes over the last stage in the airframe creation.

12:00 Break, grab a sandwich/drink.

12:15 Electronics – Right from the datasheets all the way to the populated pcbs. Yuan talks about how to get what you want from all the component information and pcb routing amongst all the other techniques and processes needed! Everyone will design a simple example pcb.

12:45 Software – Yuan talks about how to make the hardware do its stuff including getting your head around coding complexities. Henry will explain the rough structure of the ROFL code. Everyone will write a piece of code to run on Forebrain, there’ll be a strict time limit, whoever gets it done fastest in the neatest way will walk away with a Forebrain! (Yuan to judge)

13:15 A quick spiel on the most time consuming part...testing and debugging...never underestimate it!

13:20 What do you do if bits don’t work! First...try out something you know works....like someone elses quadcopter/ flight computer (think ROFL/Seraphim-Forebrain here!)

13:25 Laws and regulations on flying UAVs and RC aircraft.

13:30 Official end of workshop, Yuan and Henry will stay around for an hour or so to answer any additional questions that might have been thought up.

When?

Sat 24th Sept 9.30am to 1.30pm at London Hackspace

How much?

Free