Created by Carol Xu. Photos courtesy of Kai Gottschalk and Aayush Gupta.
Amador Valley High School’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) team shook the robotics world last month, winning second in the international AUVSI Student Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition held in Maryland. The first-time high school team bested 69 robotics teams, including prestigious collegiate UAV programs from Cornell, UCLA, Duke, and UC San Diego.
Here is how they did it:
Meet Boreas:
Boreas is a fully-custom coaxial octocopter designed throughout 2021 and built during the winter/spring of 2022. On its longest dimension, the drone is 55 inches long, weighs just over 30 pounds fully loaded and produces 104 pounds of thrust. With 60 amp-hours of battery capacity, the drone has a flight time of over 45 minutes at a static hover, and around 25-30 minutes at full speed (48 mph).
Senior Ishan Duriseti: "The biggest challenge was the entire development plan that we had because it was all planned around our new motors arriving on time. Instead they came over a month late and to add to the problem, one of the motor shafts broke during a routine test flight. We immediately scrambled to purchase another whole set of motors which again delayed testing and in the end, very little of our entire competition system was tested. We did what we could once we traveled to Maryland but that wasn’t nearly enough and we were always afraid of a random issue causing a crash, all the way up to the final competition run."
"The number of hours we had to put in the weeks leading up to the competition was incredible. I hope that next year we won’t feel that same time crunch, but the way we pulled it off this year was absolutely brilliant." –– Aayush Gupta
"We definitely bonded a lot through living under the same roof while sharing a single working shower among 14 people. Cooking together, going to the beach together, and pulling all nighters trying to fix things all helped to increase the bond. This trip was definitely one of the most challenging events I've ever faced so far, and I'm sure everyone who went on the trip would agree." –– Ethan Kuo
Dylan Kwong: "During one of my naps to catch up with sleep, the door suddenly burst open with the dead carcass of our unmanned ground vehicle, the UGV. The bent metal frame, shattered wooden plate and dirt covered electronics were set as my task to scavenge and fix. My next sleepless (again) night was dedicated to rebuilding the UGV, resawing a wooden plate, unbending the metal and rewiring the electronics."
"In the end, the few points we squeezed out of this corpse made the difference between second and third (place)."
Kai Gottschalk: "They take us out on these trailers starting in the taxi area of the airport and they drive us out to the runway. We carry the drone to the runway, and I remember looking at the drone right before it took off, thinking 'this might be the last time we see this thing in one piece,' like 'good luck drone,' and then we walked off and it flew its course."
"One of the most vivid moments of the trip was probably when (Boreas) was coming down, probably ten feet above the ground, and we’re like ‘wow this thing came back in one piece, it hasn't crashed, it’s done its thing for the most part pretty well, so it was definitely exciting to see it come home." –– Kai Gottschalk
Ishan Duriseti: "As the judges were announcing the rewards, I thought the best we could have done was top 10. Each time a place was announced and it wasn’t us, my hopes dropped and by the time 3rd place was announced, I lost all hope and stopped paying attention to the screen. ."
Parent chaperone and coach Ranganath Sriram: "Going into the awards ceremony I felt we’d finish in the top 15 for sure. This was based on our team’s performance relative to what I’d seen from many of the other teams. That said, I didn't really expect that we would finish in the top. When they started counting down teams from 10th place, I was hoping to hear Amador each time, but when they got to around 5th, my hopes diminished and I started thinking about what I’d tell the team: great performance boys, finishing at this place against a field of 67 college teams is very impressive, I’m sure we’ll do even better next year, etc. etc. And then…"
"In second place... Amador Valley High School!"
AmadorUAVs placed second, surpassing top college teams from UCLA, Duke, and Cornell.
"The last week of sleep deprivation and all-nighters, annoyed arguments and improbable last minute clutches all caught up to me. With the largest, most genuine smile on my face, I cried." –– Dylan Kwong
Even when the odds were stacked against them, the Amador UAVs’ performance at SUAS redefined what a financially-limited, first-time public high school team can achieve at a competition of high caliber.
Kai Gottschalk: "Being up against all the universities, it’s like, wow these people they have huge machine shops at school, but yeah we gotta make it work, take whatever opportunities we have, and make the most of the possibilities we’re given. It just takes the passion and the drive."
Dylan Kwong: "Our shared jokes and interests spurred our group to become a family, many with clear personalities filling in for parents, children and siblings. Between pulling all-nighters or sleeping in the same bed, cooking for each other or eating while watching the Warriors, there was no chance we would've stayed as only distant friends."
"Especially with such a special moment of winning second, spending late nights talking about every topic under the sun, and even arguing through stress and annoyance, I truly love every person on this trip."
A word from AmadorUAVs: "The trip couldn’t have been made possible without the help from Kirk Gottschalk and Ranganath Sriram, the chaperones who joined us for the week, and our success couldn’t have been possible without the incredible talent and dedication of the rest of our AmadorUAVs family––now 32 members strong."
"It is the passion, persistence, and single minded determination they showed through three long years of work, through two years of Covid and competition cancellations. The amount of technical knowledge and theoretical depth they had to learn is formidable even for students in college, let alone a group of high school students. And they did this all by themselves, leveraging internet resources and the open source community!" –– Ranganath Sriram
This summer, the 2022 officer team will be training younger members as they work their way towards leading the club and growing the team at the start of the 2022-2023 school year.
2022-23 Officer Team:
President: Kalyan Sriram
Vice President/Electrical Lead: Kai Gottschalk
Mechanical Lead: Ishan Duriseti
Software Lead: Vincent Wang
Business Lead: Derick Mathews
