Industry reps drawn to students’ work with quadrotors

Prof. Grace Gao of Aerospace Engineering at Illinois motivated the students in her UAV Navigation and Control class (AE 483) in an exciting way. She invited industry executives and national researchers to engage with the students and the class. They gave guest lectures, and provided student final project prizes as well as internship and job opportunities.

Representatives from Horizon Hobby, a leader in radio control airplanes, cars, quadrotors and radios, and senior scientists from NASA’s Ames Research Center came to campus in December to watch the AE 483 Aerospace Decision Algorithms presentations.

Working in teams, the students produced 29 short videos of their projects, ranging from a quadrotor responding to cell phone text commands, to a craft that would locate missing children for frantic parents, to one that would deliver first aid kits to accident scenes, and to another that would act like a scarecrow in chasing birds away from crops. The following video won first place.

Horizon Hobby showed its appreciation for the initiatives by providing a dozen drones as prizes for the top projects, as voted upon by the students. Gao said the company and NASA Ames were rewarded for their involvement by gaining access to great students for internships and full-time positions.

Associate Prof. Tim Bretl developed the popular AE 483 course a few years ago. Gao said her contribution has been in encouraging participation of outside companies. “It takes a lot of effort to reach out to industry, let them know about the awesome course and our great students, and get them engaged with our teaching,” she said. “It makes me happy that the students benefit directly from such industry engagement.”

Additionally, Gao invited a Horizon Hobby senior engineer to give a guest lecture to the class in November. “He talked about what industry is doing in terms of UAVs, and the students got excited. They saw that what they learn in class directly applies to industry,” Gao said.

She also presented a seminar at E-fest, the radio-controlled aircraft festival held earlier last month in the University of Illinois Armory building. Hobbico, the largest U.S. distributor of radio-control and general hobby products, sponsors the festival.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Design, Build and Fly student group hosted a booth at the Hobbico E-fest as well.