CognitaSTEM

Build a quadcopter, then fly it

Start from the DJI F450-class kit or draw your own frame. You cut each plate from the sheet, drill every hole to ISO 273, solder the power board, wire the flight controller, ESCs, motors and battery, and the engine tells you whether it will fly before you arm it.

Start buildingSee the courses

[01] The build

One drone, from a drawing to its first flight

Every step happens in CognitaSTEM: drawn, cut and printed in the Workshop, wired and checked in the STEM Engine, then flown in the physics sim.

  1. Line drawing, from above: the F450 frame's centre plate and four arms
    [01]Workshop

    Draw the frame

    Lay out the F450 plates and arms on the dot sheet, or start from the preset.

  2. Line drawing of a 3018 desktop CNC router
    [02]Workshop

    Cut the plates

    Send the plates to the CNC router and cut them, segment by segment.

  3. Line drawing of an i3-style 3D printer with a filament spool
    [03]Workshop

    Print the parts

    Print the mounts and landing gear on the 3D printer.

  4. Line drawing of the assembled F450 frame with its landing legs
    [04]Workshop

    Assemble the frame

    Drill every hole to ISO 273, then bolt the arms between the plates.

  5. Line drawing of the frame with a brushless motor on each arm
    [05]STEM Engine

    Motors and ESCs

    Mount four 2212 motors, solder each ESC to the power board.

  6. Line drawing of the quad with the flight controller, GPS mast and wiring
    [06]STEM Engine

    Wire the flight controller

    Flight controller, GPS, receiver and telemetry, every lead to its port.

  7. Line drawing of the quad from low down, the battery strapped under the frame
    [07]STEM Engine

    Power-on check

    Strap in the LiPo. The engine names any part or wire that would stop it flying.

  8. Line drawing of the finished quad with all four propellers
    [08]Physics sim

    Props on, then fly

    Props go on last, CW and CCW. Then arm it and fly it in the physics sim.

[02] Configurations

Four ways to put a drone in the air

Quad, hexa, tri or bi: pick the airframe and the engine sets the motor order, the spin of every prop and the ArduPilot frame type.

  • Line drawing of the F450 quadcopter, fully built
    [01]

    Quadcopter X (F450)

    4 motors, 450 mm

    Diagonal pairs spin the same way, so their torques cancel

  • Line drawing of the F550 hexacopter, fully built
    [02]

    Hexacopter X (F550)

    6 motors, 550 mm

    More lift, and it can survive losing a motor

  • Line drawing of the Y tricopter, fully built
    [03]

    Tricopter Y

    3 motors and a tail servo

    The tail motor tilts to steer the yaw

  • Line drawing of the bicopter, fully built
    [04]

    Bicopter

    2 motors on tilting servos

    Flies like a small V-22

[03] Flight controllers

Five real flight controllers

Each one drawn to its maker's dimensions, with its real ports and pinouts, so the wiring you learn is the wiring on the bench.

  • Pixhawk 1 flight controller
    [01]

    Pixhawk 1 / 2.4.8

    50 x 81.5 x 15.5 mm

    ArduPilot Copter or PX4

  • Holybro Pixhawk 6C flight controller
    [02]

    Pixhawk 6C

    84.8 x 44 x 12.4 mm, 59.3 g

    ArduPilot Copter or PX4

  • CubePilot Cube Orange+ on its carrier board
    [03]

    Cube Orange+

    Cube 38.25 mm on its carrier

    ArduPilot Copter or PX4

  • SpeedyBee F405 V4 flight controller board
    [04]

    SpeedyBee F405 V4

    F405, 30.5 mm stack

    With a 4-in-1 ESC

  • Matek H743-SLIM V4 flight controller board
    [05]

    Matek H743-SLIM V4

    H743, 36 x 36 mm, 7 g

    With a 4-in-1 ESC

[04] Parts

Every part, then the finished quad

Frames, motors and props as they come out of the box, and the quad they make, its wiring tied in under the frame.

The finished F450 quad: motors, propellers, flight controller, GPS mast and black landing skids, its wiring tied in
  • F450 quad frame, red front arms and white rear arms
    [01]

    F450 quad frame

    Glass-fibre plates; the lower one is the power board

  • F550 hexacopter frame
    [02]

    F550 hexa frame

    The F450's six-arm sibling

  • Tricopter Y frame
    [03]

    Tricopter Y frame

    Carbon tubes, tilting tail mount

  • Bicopter frame
    [04]

    Bicopter frame

    Two tilt mounts, one per motor

  • 2212 brushless outrunner motor with its X-mount
    [05]

    2212 920 KV motor

    Brushless outrunner, 28 mm bell

  • Orange 10 inch reverse-pitch propeller
    [06]

    Propeller 1045R (CW)

    10 x 4.5 in, reverse pitch

  • Black 10 inch standard propeller
    [07]

    Propeller 1045 (CCW)

    10 x 4.5 in, standard pitch

[05] Step by step

How it goes

  1. [01]Design the frame on the dot sheet, or start from the F450 preset
  2. [02]Cut each plate segment by segment and smooth the edges
  3. [03]Drill every hole to the ISO 273 clearance for its screw
  4. [04]Assemble arms, boards and motors, torqued to spec
  5. [05]Solder the power board: ESC leads and the battery pigtail
  6. [06]Wire the Pixhawk, receiver, ESCs, motors and LiPo
  7. [07]Run the power-on check, then fly it in the physics sim

[06] Specification

What goes on the frame

FrameF450-class: two boards, four arms, motor mounts
Flight controllerPixhawk-class, with IMU
PropulsionFour brushless motors, CW and CCW, with ESCs
Power3S/4S LiPo through a power module to the power board
CheckA power-on trace that names the part and the wire that stops it flying

[07] Standards

Marked against

  • [01]ISO 273 clearance holesClearance hole sizes for every screw you drill for
  • [02]ISO 4762 cap screwsSocket head cap screws that hold the frame together
  • [03]ISO 2768-1 tolerancesGeneral tolerances your cuts are measured against
  • [04]NASA-STD-8739.3 solderingSoldering the power board

[08] Courses

Courses

  • Robotics

    [01]

    Drone Design and Assembly for Beginners

    A complete, hands-on start in drones. You take an F450 quadcopter apart in 3D, meet every part in 2D and 3D (the Pixhawk flight controller, the power module, ESCs, brushless motors, props, GPS, radios and the LiPo pack), and learn how four spinning propellers hold a drone up and steer it. You learn the STEM Engine one tool at a time, then build the drone yourself: the power chain, the ESCs and motors, a fault-find, the ArduPilot parameter file, and a pre-flight check. Then you fly it in the Physics Sim: a hover, a waypoint circuit, and the missions real drones fly: geofencing, parcel drops, search and rescue, auto-charging and reconnaissance. Seven assignments in the STEM Engine take you from an empty board to a hand-wired quad flying a reconnaissance mission, each one graded on the server. **Launch offer:** buying the course upgrades your account to Premium for 1 month and unlocks every Physics Sim mission module. To go further, from designing and fabricating your own frame to FPV stacks and other airframes, continue with **Advanced Drone Design and Assembly**.

    69 lessons, 1 free to try ·

    Open a free lesson →

[09] More builds

Build something else

Start today

Cut your first plate today

Create an account and open the Workshop in your browser, then take a short course to go further.

Start buildingSee the courses