I Vibecoded A Drone
a great and horrible idea
Wanting to participate in the Darpa Lift Challenge but lacking collaborators (as well as any meaningful aeronautical engineering skills), I vibe-coded a 50-pound flying object. “Flying.” Here are the highlights. Source chats: chatty g, claude.
1/10/26: initial concept submission. a quadplane, with a paramotor powering a turbine powering a quadcopter!
6/5: show some actual progress or you cannot come:(
6/12 boom spinning!
6/19-6/23 confusion ensues about whether i have submitted any documentation darpa can actually view. eventually, i just post on instagram and send them a link.
6/23 rejected:(
6/24 just kidding: invited!
I’m gonna need to order some carbon fiber... etc.
Instead of getting to work, I go spearfishing until 7/3… then some fireworks, cuz ‘merica
7/5: ok let’s get started
foam --> wings
7/7 nichrome wire + electricity = foam cutter
7/8 vaguely wing-like!
7/10 fancy tubes + many other packages
7/11 more power!
7/12 magnets make test charging / balancing rig
7/14 spot welding it up
7/18 will unidirectionally reinforced carbon fiber tube hold?
7/19 starting to look vaguely like wings!
7/21 fiberglassing
7/23 and waaay too heavy:( fuck. also, neither i nor ai models seem to have thought through whether physically possible to turn with wings this big inside of course boundaries... drop out??
7/23 fuck it let’s strip it down
H frame bracket prototype, in creamsicle:
7/25 amazingly, this might actually fly
7/27 motors on frame with avionics, too!
7/29 flying... or at least trying
remember: carbon fiber is conductive. this is what happens with brass bolts serving as battery terminals directly touching it:( remarkably, everything is fine except for one xt90 connector!
7/30 slight kinda hop thing. it’s thursday, and competition starts monday... in ohio… which is not in california
7/31 last-minute carbon fiber joints. they can finish drying en route
8/1 gear made it, and ups was kind enough to stay open 7 minutes extra so i can get my battery cells for new packs (couldn’t ship custom packs in time or fly with them)
hotel room battery lab. cover smoke detector with plastic bag out of an abundance of caution;)
woohoo first 2 packs built + charging!
8/2 finishing things up on-site... like many other teams.
8/3 ready to maybe even fly!
hop!
fuck it let’s send it
the debris. no batteries exploded!
in the end, i’m out 2 motors, some props, a few batteries (broke down to individual cells and shipped rest back to Oakland!), and a very hectic ~month. This will not be the last iteration of some silly heavy lift drone I build... nor the last big project I wing. Turns out working really hard at interesting new things makes you learn a lot quickly and is fun, regardless of how quickly your $15k of parts fall from the sky;)