Additive Manufacturing Drone Design Challenge

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) hosts an annual event with various design competitions called E-Fest (Engineering Festival). E-Fest is put on to challenge engineering students across the country to design, build and compete in various competitions. This year select students from UVU's mechanical engineering program have entered E-Fest's Innovative Additive Manufacturing 3D (IAM3D) event. This paper will highlight the drone design process and final drone design submitted to that event. The IAM3D event prompts students to use additive manufacturing to solve the current year's design challenge. For the 2020 E-Fest IAM3D event, participates were challenged to design an Unmanned Aerial Racing Cargo Vehicle (U.A.R.C.V) Each team's U.A.R.C.V will be designed using additive manufacturing with an emphasis on the iterative process and designing for the assembly. Each vehicle will be piloted remotely using first person visuals (FPV). Vehicles will compete in a five-team race through an obstacle course picking up and delivering one payload per lap. Designing for the UVU drone was centered around the rapid use of the 3D Printer. Team meetings were held often where the drone was designed, assembled and tested. For each meeting, new parts were designed and printed based on the work that occurred from the previous affair. The drone design changed fast as new physical prototypes were created. The testing aspect included physical evaluations of the drone as well as analysis completed virtually.