Drone Design

After joining the Cornell Autonomous Drone project team (CUAD), my first project was to redesign a drone named Flippy that had recently broke. I was to design it in CAD so that the components could be CNCed from carbon fiber sheets, so that it would be more sturdy than the previous version which had been fully 3D-printed.

It went through several iterations and I learned a lot about designing for assembly, since the first version I made wouldn’t even have been able to be assembled if we had gone ahead and machined it. I also learned how to create tooling paths on Autodesk Fusion’s Manufacturing software to be used for cutting the carbon fiber with the CNC machine. Currently, I have finished machining all parts, and the electrical components and motors are in the process of being assembled onto the drone.