Discovering how to fly a quadrocopter drone autonomously – at home
On 4 May, ETH Zurich is presenting the KITE Award to honour particularly innovative teaching projects and initiatives. In a short series, we present the three projects that made it to the final. All of them were created in the semesters of distance learning.
In the course “Quad-Rotors: Control and Estimation”, Bachelor’s students of the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering are able to deepen and apply their theoretical knowledge of control systems in the laboratory. Their task is to work in a small team on the development of their own control system that allows a tiny drone, or quadrocopter, to fly autonomously. In the lab, students can use a sophisticated motion capture system to carry out measurements of the drone’s position and orientation.
The course had only been running for three years before lockdown hit. “Since the students couldn’t visit the lab, we had to bring the lab to their homes,” explain Jeremy Coulson and Paul Beuchat, who devised and ran the course. They quickly adapted the quadrocopter’s hardware and used online teaching resources to allow remote teamwork and supervision. “We sent students a package with a modified quadrocopter and plug-and-play software developed by us,” says Jeremy Coulson.
This gave them the hardware they needed to carry out experiments at home without the usual expensive laboratory equipment available before the pandemic. “At the same time, our goal was to create an atmosphere in which students are able to work together effectively in teams,” Paul Beuchat adds. “In addition, we wanted to be able to give students just-in-time learning guidance.” The break-out sessions available in Zoom were ideal for this purpose.
The feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive. Coulson and Beuchat therefore plan to continue making their hardware and software available to students in the future, so they can carry on working with quadrocopters outside teaching hours.
Innovation in Learning and Teaching Fair
This years’ KITE Award will be presented at the first Innovation in Learning and Teaching Fair on
4 May. This new event brings together two former events: the Learning and Teaching Fair, where ETH lecturers exchange innovative teaching ideas and projects, and the KITE Award, a prize conferred every two years by the Lecturers’ Conference to honour outstanding teaching innovations.
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