Cristo Rey Philadelphia 12th graders recently shared a video update of their drone-building engineering project. For a few years, community college students have been building drones over the summer through Base 11’s fellowship program at UCI. But this is a first for high school students through Base 11!

The program came about when Deloitte Foundation funded the installation of  new design and rapid-prototyping equipment, specialized summer training for Cristo Rey Philadelphia faculty, and experiential curriculum developed in partnership with the Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine.

Over the course of the year, the students will be working in small groups on mini projects that range from using 3D printers with computer-aided design (CAD) to basic electronics programming. By the end of the year, they’ll have designed and built fully functional autonomous aerial vehicles — or drones!

Check out their progress:

And stay tuned for more updates from the future engineers at Cristo Rey Philadelphia.

 

As the student’s instructor shared with us on a previous blog, “My hope is that they learn life-long behaviors and applications that will allow them to be successful adults.” — Eva Porter, teacher.

To learn more about the Deloitte Foundation’s support of Base 11 and Cristo Rey Philadelphia, click here.