Trial by Flyer: Building Quadcopters From Scratch in a Ten-Week Capstone Course
This addresses the problem of scaling hands-on engineering education for students, but it is incremental as it builds on existing capstone course structures with specific tool improvements.
The authors tackled the challenge of teaching a 10-week capstone course where students build quadcopters from scratch, covering hardware and software aspects, and implemented an automated PCB design checking tool to reduce staff workload and improve feedback.
We describe our experience teaching an intensive capstone course in which pairs of students build the hardware and software for a remote-controller quad-rotor aircraft (i.e., a quadcopter or "drone") from scratch in one 10-week quarter. The course covers printed circuit board (PCB) design and assembly, basic control theory and sensor fusion, and embedded systems programming. To reduce the workload on course staff and provide higher-quality feedback on student designs, we have implemented an automated PCB design checking tool/autograder. We describe the course content in detail, identify the challenges it presents to students and course staff, and propose changes to further increase student success and improve the scalability of the course.