High-flying: High school students build drones during the Studienwoche

The Studienwochen 2022, in which our department participated next to four others, was about building, programming and testing a remote-controlled drone. The students learned how to

• use sensors
• process sensor data to control a system
• drive motors and
  
• transmit data wirelessly.

After 3D printing, the housing that holds together the various components of the drone – motors, circuit board with sensors, processor, radio receiver/transmitter and the battery – the participants took a closer look at the hardware and got answers on how to control the motors, how the data gets from the sensor to the processor and how to power the drone.

To find out which motor to turn and how much, the drone had to determine its position and orientation through sensor data and then both stabilise and move in the desired direction.

Last but not least, the control commands had to reach the drone wirelessly via an app.

On the last day of the Studienwoche a team of two students presented the week's programme and outcome to the interested audience, consisting of other ETH Studienwochen participants and their families.