In just a few short years, the UAVs @ Berkeley club has gone from an idea to a club with a community of students and faculty and research partners of over 100, who are helping draft the UC Berkeley and University of California drone policies for campuses, and created a workspace at the NEXTOR offices at ITS Berkeley, in addition to recruiting new members, racing drones and working on education at events.
In addition, the club is sending five student pilots to the first ever Collegiate Drone Racing National Championship. Trey Fortmuller, David Dominguez Hooper, Joey Kroeger, Matt Wong and Andre Askari will represent UC Berkeley and join 50 pilots to compete on April 15 at Purdue University.
The Berkeley student pilots will compete as individuals and as a team at the competition. As individuals, pilots will race between 10-15 times throughout the day and scores will be recorded by the number of completed laps in 2 minutes of flight as drones pass through gates and stay within the boundaries of the track. Pilots with the top 16 individual scores will compete in a head to bracket to determine final rankings of pilots.
The team score will be determined based off of the sum of the university’s top 3 pilots’ individual scores. Laps completed in the final bracket will add to the team’s score.
Good luck to the UAV @ Berkeley pilots! Check out their website.