Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Mechanical Engineering Students Partner With Millennium Engineering to Build Drone Ground Station

Tuesday, July 30, 2019, By Alex Dunbar
Share
College of Engineering and Computer ScienceResearch and CreativeSTEMStudents

group of people standingWhile still undergraduate students, Kyle Hobart ’19, Julia Telesca ’19, Jacklyn Hingre ’19, Veronica Diaz Lafferty ’19 and Nathan Johnson ’19 were already working with an international company—Millennium Engineering. For their senior design project, the team took on the task of building a ground station tether reel for drones.

“The drone they use has a 10-15 minute flight time and that is it, the battery is dead and those take hours to charge back up. To connect it into the ground station, you can charge it and have it fly for hours,” says Hobart.

“The point of it is there would be multiple ground stations so if there was a wildfire they would place multiple ground stations on the edges so they could survey it or at a concert along those lines,” says Telesca.

The project involved many elements—building a reel, a parachute and a motor incorporated with a control system—and each component had to work with the others.

“It was incredible. You were able to see what the industry was like, get feedback as we were going through the process of creating designs and testing,” says Hingre.

“We got our control system working, which means as the drone flies up the reel will unwind and give the drone slack so it can fly higher. It will wind back up if you don’t give it enough,” says Hobart. “When we release the connection piece in mid-air, the umbrella will float down and save the connection piece.”

For final testing, the team attached the drone station to an octocopter.

three people working with tools on electrical component“Watching the drone take off and have the motor turn in the right, then have it release and the umbrella work—we were ecstatic,” says Hingre.

“If you spend the four years here, all that background knowledge comes in, you get this station that works,” says Hobart. “It’s amazing they bring these companies and they work so willingly with students like me.”

“To see that we could do it and accomplish that is something that for engineering in the future, I’m very confident in any team project I have,” says Telesca.

  • Author

Alex Dunbar

  • Recent
  • Whitman’s Johan Wiklund Named a Top Scholar Globally for Business Research Publications
    Tuesday, June 17, 2025, By Caroline K. Reff
  • Lab THRIVE: Advancing Student Mental Health and Resilience
    Thursday, June 12, 2025, By News Staff
  • On Your Mark, Get Set, Go Orange! Faculty and Staff at the Syracuse WorkForce Run (Gallery)
    Thursday, June 12, 2025, By News Staff
  • Oren Lyons Jr., Roy Simmons Jr. Honored With Alfie Jacques Ambassador Award
    Wednesday, June 11, 2025, By John Boccacino
  • McDonald Assumes New Role as Associate Vice President for Research
    Wednesday, June 11, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin

More In STEM

WiSE Hosts the 2025 Norma Slepecky Memorial Lecture and Undergraduate Research Prize Award Ceremony

This spring, Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) held its annual Norma Slepecky Memorial Lecture and Award Ceremony. WiSE was honored to host distinguished guest speaker Joan-Emma Shea, who presented “Self-Assembly of the Tau Protein: Computational Insights Into Neurodegeneration.” Shea…

Endowed Professorship Recognizes Impact of a Professor, Mentor and Advisor

Bao-Ding “Bob” Cheng’s journey to Syracuse University in pursuit of graduate education in the 1960s was long and arduous. He didn’t have the means for air travel, so he voyaged more than 5,000 nautical miles by boat from his home…

Forecasting the Future With Fossils

One of the most critical issues facing the scientific world, no less the future of humanity, is climate change. Unlocking information to help understand and mitigate the impact of a warming planet is a complex puzzle that requires interdisciplinary input…

ECS Professor Pankaj K. Jha Receives NSF Grant to Develop Quantum Technology

Detecting single photons—the smallest unit of light—is crucial for advanced quantum technologies such as optical quantum computing, communication and ultra-sensitive imaging. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are the most efficient means of detecting single photons and these detectors can count…

Rock Record Illuminates Oxygen History

Several key moments in Earth’s history help us humans answer the question, “How did we get here?” These moments also shed light on the question, “Where are we going?,” offering scientists deeper insight into how organisms adapt to physical and…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.