McIntosh Aeronautics is an international champion. The Chief team won UAS4STEM, a drone competition sponsored by the Academy of Model Aeronautics, Skydio drones, and the NAVY.
UAS4STEM is designed for students to learn, practice, and demonstrate professional un-crewed aircraft system (UAS) knowledge, mission planning, flight skills, data collection, analysis, and safety practices in a competitive team-oriented environment. It is a drone competition for everyone, with both beginner and advanced categories. It has grown, including international teams this year.
The weekend in Oshkosh, Wisconsin included a break to visit with Airbus where engineers and program managers talked career options with the students. Teams also got to tour an A350 and show off their drone and developmental tests.
The flight portion of the competition consists of three parts: Programming challenge, target search, and object pickup and delivery. For programming challenge, teams program the drone within 15 minutes to complete 8 tasks. For target search, they run a search grid to locate 6 targets hidden in a storage yard. The final challenge asks teams to program the drone to land on targets, pick up objects, and deliver them to another target location.
McIntosh Aeronautics not only survived the gauntlet of challenges, but, with teamwork and innovation, they soared above the other teams to secure 1st place and became the competition’s first international champions.
The winning team is Connor Johnson, Arinze Ugbajah, Raaga Sundar, Sage Shah, Siah Yoon, Aran Anuraj, Aadi Vaidya, and Arya Shojai, with teacher Seth Bishop.
McIntosh Aeronautics is sponsored by Airbus.
