Thrust FPV stunt drone

DAY ONE

The drone should have the following qualities: - Small - agile (speed and quick turns) - have a custom FC - cameraaa - be resistant to crashes (or be designed to break in a way that it can be reassembled) - be under $150 - look polished and visually striking (hoping to win highway design competition :3) - self stabilised - collision prevention (to some extent)

I also need to somehow make it in 3 days to be eligible for the competition :heavysob:, but i'm still gonna make it good

Today I'll start the flight controller PCB. I was confused between using STM32F4 chips (used most commonly in drones, great perfomance) and RP2040 (slower, but easier to setup). ChatGPT said STM32 chips are significantly harder to setup initially, but post talkuing to a few people on the slack, STM isn't too hard to setup, so I'll be using the STM32F401CCU6 with USB FS and STMDuino support.

DAY TWO

Made most of the schematic today This is mostly the low level stuff for the STM32 chip to work, and added ICM-42688-P. I'll be using an ESP32-CAM module for the camera and wireless connectivity. The camera is fully independent of the STM32, and a UART connection between ESP and STM32 is used for controls.

I don't think I'll be able to submit for the design competition :sob:, but that gives me more time to work on a well designed, high perfomance drone with a custom FC.

Tomorrow, I'll get started on BOM (battery, motors, ESCs, etc), and hopefully also finish the PCB!

Schematic: 1.5 hours

DAY THREE-FOUR

Worked more on the schematic, and finally finished it!

It's not exactly neat, but I'll organise and label the blocks later (when i ship it).

Also, a problem i realised when going to make the PCB-- I didn't label the capacitors' and resistors' capacitance and resistance respectively :skull:, so it'll take some more time.

Schematic: 1.5-2 hours

DAY FIVE

So I'm almost done with PCB layout, it's quite compact for now but i need to consider things like noise and interference with RF and MCU, so that might take another day.

PCB so far:

Rounting seemed VERY overwhelming till now, but it was done like a breeze lol PCB: 1 hour

DAY SIX

Okay, PCB is almost fully finished, just need to route the RF module and GND plane. (The entire PCB fits under 4.5cm?!)

This looks SO complicated but im really proud of myself for building this and not picking up a good expensive FC from a website :D

I wanted to work more but I also really need to start preparing for an upcoming MUN in a week

PCB: 1.5 hours