moniker a news article it’s a department
of the EPA starting competent for use of
drone technology by now probably all of
you have heard about drones no recon of
cargo delivery military attacks the UAE
competition drones for good was
organized to stimulate society to think
about non military of John technology
our assignment was to create a drone
so article my roommate and I emailed one
this professor agreed to become our
mentor is the first value for
problem-solving that I want to emphasize
mentor is someone accountable to and
pure values he’s someone that you choose
rather than being assigned to you so
that you’re naturally inclined to
respect them and follow their advice it
is someone to turn to if things go bad
on this side I say excellent mentorship
well what does that mean of course
everyone’s mind is wired differently
so what excellent mentorship means to me
might not be an axial mentorship to you
but a model of mentorship in which the
mentor collaborates rather and pewters
inspires rather than intimidate and
respect your limitations rather than
dismissing you for them it’s something
that I found crucial in my work and my
education so when starting a project I
ask myself a question is there someone I
after having a great mentor addressing a
real problem is the second powerful
principle that I want to propose have a
look at this Rubik’s Cube no longer how
long I try to solve it I cannot find a
solution because there’s no problem to
solve an accurate definition an
assessment of a problem is the
foundation of a good solution a real
problem is justified by external
evidence but it’s also something you
that you truly believe in internally you
may find it via a statistical report
self reflection in the shower
or talking to people but once you phone
and find a real problem it is something
that makes for the strongest possible
problem definition when finding a
problem to address for the drones for a
good competition my roommate and I
realized that we want to find a real
problem faced by the UAE government so
the way when about this is we probed the
domestic policy of the UAE and we found
that environment is a key political
component of the national political
agenda after this first step we look for
a partner that is willing to experiment
with a new technology and accept our
help we join forces with the Wadi for a
National Park it is the first national
park in the United Arab Emirates the
largest and it is recognized by the Rams
our convention under the patronage of
WWF as a wetland of international
importance our approach to finding the
problem here was very personal we went
to the park we talked to Rangers and the
management and we asked them about their
job and we found out that the single
most important tool they have for
protecting the natural environment of
the park are these camera traps there
are motion activated cameras spread
they snap a photo whenever there is an
animal or a poacher present in front of
their motion sensor the challenge
release or a challenge with a current
method of getting photos from these
cameras spread across the vast expanse
of the park is that the Rangers have to
hike to get as D cards from those camera
traps they have to hike for up to two
days in temperatures that reach 50
degrees Celsius I guess in the Middle
East
and the UAE must allocate military
helicopter at a price of around 270
thousand dollars a year to reach points
in the national park otherwise and
accessible during the summer when it’s
the hottest so regardless of the drones
for good competition we found here a
problem that needs to be addressed
this was our real problem it is
justified by the external evidence and
since I actually became friends with
these Park Rangers it was something I
truly believe them it is easier to
recognize a real problem when it’s so
deeply based in real world like this but
a real problem can be more theoretical
as well though no matter how much work
you put into your idea as long as you’re
not solving a relevant problem your
solution is likely to go unnoticed after
identifying a real problem you need to
find a way to solve it here I would like
to propose collaboration as the second
value for going about this sorry third
value in the real world you have to
solve the problem with a finite amount
of money time and knowledge and
collaboration is a way to surmount these
challenges in the water drone our
solution the problem and YT bruh
national park was this data mule drone
it connects from 250 meters in the air
to our proprietary solo part for a
transmission system which is on the
ground
this augments the existing camera traps
like so but some connections
and allows them to transmit photos from
the camera trap to our drone this device
cuts the frequency with which the
Rangers have to hike through the truth
National Park by 1/2 and reduces the
cost remember the Black Hawk helicopter
by a factor of 10 this is a photo from
our test flight in the national park as
you can see the drone is hand launched
from a location in park it flies to the
GPS coordinates using an autopilot and
once it reaches the camera trap like
this one it circles overhead and
wirelessly download the photos
afterwards it flies back to the base and
Rangers don’t have to hike all right
that’s not it so now I hope to have
raised the question in your mind how can
four undergraduate students develop a
machine that requires knowledge of
electrical mechanical and aeronautical
engineering and computer science it was
through collaboration collaboration can
mean looking back to what other people
have done or looking forward to imagine
with the help of others things that
don’t exist yet building on top of
existing work of other people is
something that has been at the center of
human development through academia for
centuries but today working in a global
market when anything can be shipped
between two locations in the world in
five days it is easier than ever before
to work with other people’s existing
solutions in the water drone since there
is no point in reinventing the wheel
rather than building electronics from
scratch we think hurt and hacked around
exist
technologies for example our plane is
guided by the APM autopilot
it is an open ultimately open source
autopilot developed by drone enthusiasts
around the world so while they were
developing it they documented it very
well so it’s very easy to learn how to
use because so many people worked on it
it is well tested and reliable and being
open source it is one fifth of the cost
of other commercial auto pilots this way
of collaboration is reflective it uses
what other people have already done
another way to collaborate is to create
what does not exist yet it is by
reaching out to people for help with
tasks outside your scope of knowledge
all around us there are people with
brilliant skills and various areas and
they are very excited to use them
especially young people like myself
where passion about what they are doing
to collaborate mentorship solving a real
problem and collaboration are three
values that allow hard-working people to
create positive change these three
principles are integral part of
entrepreneurship and education that I
want to receive the in state the
problem-solving attitude that
acknowledges the interconnectedness and
openness of today’s world everyone has
the propensity and can have the ability
to be entrepreneurial and this is a
framework to make the most out of a
finite amount of time money and
knowledge thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
thank you very much [Applause]