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GIFTS: First-Year Drone Design Competition

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Conference

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Publication Date

June 22, 2025

Start Date

June 22, 2025

End Date

August 15, 2025

Conference Session

First-Year Programs Division (FPD) GIFTS Session 1: Human-Centered and Project-Based Innovation in First-Year Engineering Design

Tagged Division

First-Year Programs Division (FPD)

Page Count

16

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/56652

Paper Authors

biography

Charles E. Baukal Jr. P.E. Oklahoma Baptist University

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Charles E. Baukal, Jr. has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, an Ed.D., and Professional Engineering License. He is the Director of Engineering. He has over 40 years of industrial experience.

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Abstract

This Great Ideas for Teaching Students (GIFTS) paper describes a Design Methodology project. First-year engineering projects play an important role in retention by exposing students early in the curriculum to the type of work done by engineers. In the project described here, electrical and mechanical engineering students were divided into teams to design drones to deliver Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) packets intended to feed severely malnourished children. The main performance objective was to deliver as many RUTF packets as possible across a football field in 30 minutes as part of a drone competition.

The project exposed freshmen to all the major elements of design including cost, schedule, testing, reporting, communication, project management, and working in teams. While some technical specifications had to be modified during the course of the project, it ultimately achieved the primary learning objective of having students solve a real, ill-structured engineering problem of reasonable complexity with a humanitarian aspect that required innovation and creativity.

Baukal, C. E. (2025, June), GIFTS: First-Year Drone Design Competition Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . https://peer.asee.org/56652

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