Of all the teams making up UGV, Beta team is the most hard-working, admirable, and good-looking of the bunch. Meet Adi Peesapati, fearless team leader. He works through day and night (okay, mostly day) to control the wildly creative bunch. Our goal for this quarter is to build a search and rescue plane that can not only fly for three hours but also has the ability to use solar panels to recharge itself. To do that, we wanted to first understand how planes work so we bought a remote control plane, the RQ-11. We did research to find the best combination of compartments such as motors, servos, battery, esc, and all that good stuff. The next phase of this project is to better understand the engineering process that is associated with the actual design process of an airplane. Our goal now, is to find a way to integrate vertical takeoff capability with the horizontal flight capability of a fixed plane. Imagine the Shield Hover Craft except about a hundred times smaller and way better looking. If Nick Fury saw this thing he would like that is one nice looking plane you want to sell it to me. As the week progresses, we will decide on an ideal design. Currently we are working on how we are going to be building the plane and determining the cost of material along with the plane’s total weight. In the meantime, as far as the RC planes are concerned, we are waiting patiently as the rest of the components arrive.

By Colleen Muawad, Unmanned Ground Vehicle