Written by Lukas, Grade 9, in the MYP Journalism Elective
In the final year of the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP), all Grade 10 students complete the capstone Personal Project, where students create a product they are interested in and select a learning goal. This year, Advieek S created a drone for his project, which took a duration of 6 months to complete.
Creating a drone was a way for him to pursue his future aspiration of becoming a mechanical space engineer or an aerospace engineer.
Advieek’s drone was a unique one. Unlike typical drones, which are made for more stability and a longer flight, he created a first-person view drone which has a lot of differences, such as excelling at higher speeds and having more agility. Additionally, FPV drones require more experience and expertise to control as they excel at higher speeds. Because of this, making decisions with them is more difficult than making decisions with more stable and slow standard drones. Another difference between these two drones is that FPV drones are controlled through goggles, headsets and other receiver modules, while standard drones aren’t.
“I worked with an FPV drone which is different to the other types of drones,” said Advieek. Advieek had a camera attached to the drone, which sent a video to a goggle’s receiver module.
Throughout Advieek’s project, he did all the research about drone compartments and built the drone fully by himself, but it didn’t come so easily. “Building and finding specific parts was very difficult,” said Advieek. Although Advieek faced numerous challenges such as having problems with programming the drone and building the drone (due to the lack of availability of parts), that did not stop him from making a successful product that satisfied both his peers and family.
Advieeks friends found his drone project very cool as the creation of these fpv drones were not very common, and so did his parents. Advieeks parents were proud seeing their hardworking son put all this effort into creating his drone. “Additionally, my parents were very proud of my work,” said Advieek.
Despite the challenges Advieek faced, Advieek’s main highlight was when his drone powered up into the air, and he was able to see the view of the drone through his goggles!
Advieek’s project wouldn’t have been achieved without his Personal Project supervisor, Lyle Bobyk, who played a key role in his success.
“Mr. Bobyk helped me plan everything out and helped me with my custom 3D printing of my drone frame,” answered Advieek when asked who helped him the most throughout his project.
When asked if it was worth putting all this time and effort into this project, Advieek replied, “I would say that the project was well worth it, and it taught me a lot of new maths and building skills.”
If you’d like to see more of the MYP Personal Projects, join us on April 4, 2024 @ 15:00-16:00 in the ISP Blue Room and Landau Theatre.
