During their first semester, students from the Bachelor in Engineering at the University of Luxembourg have worked in teams to design and develop drones.
As part of the course entitled “Design project based learning” led by Claude Wolf, senior lecturer within the Department of Engineering at the University of Luxembourg, first-year students in engineering had the opportunity to build their own drones.
“The objective of the project was to develop, test and optimise a drone for recreational use. By using 3D printing, the drone had to be light, attractive and integrate a maximum of different functions defined by the students. They marked each other on the design and on the video presentations. Then a competition was organised to determine the fastest, most manoeuvrable and functional drones,” explains Claude Wolf.
The team “Amphidrone” composed of four students from the Bachelor in Engineering, namely Tom Berna, Belmin Burkic, Max Pundel and Sam Ries, won the competition with the best design, video and performance. They share their experience:
How did you divide up the work?
“Each week we appointed a new team leader who directed the work for one week and a secretary who took note of the work done during the week. For the division of tasks, each person chose the one that best suited him or her, for example the design or the creation of a website.”
How did you create the drone?
“We built our drone using 3D printing. Since the drone had to be very small, we decided to give priority to functionality. In order to be sure that all the features we envisaged could work properly, we started printing prototypes and testing them very early on. We believe that this strategy was the reason we won the competition.”
How long did it take?
“We had 3 hours of classes per week dedicated to this work. In addition, we often worked on our project during lunch breaks and at home throughout the semester.”
What did you enjoy the most?
“Being able to work independently and responsibly. We also really appreciated the creativity of the project and the fact that we were able to work on a practical case during the first semester.”
You won the competition, what does that mean for you?
“We invested a lot of time and effort in this project, and we also had a lot of fun. This work allowed us to work well as a team and to grow together. So of course we were very happy when this work was rewarded.”
More information about Amphidrone.