So last week I took the Aspen out for a couple of test flights. PID needs a little work, but its in the air and doing what it was designed to do. You can see in the video and image below the payload attachment / hopper. This drone is intended as a seed dispersal drone for restoring tall grass prairie and potentially treated seeds for reforestation projects. (none of you guessed it!) I'll be submitting it to Hackaday's Earth Day Challenge this month.

This weekend I added some landing gear to the drone. I found that it sat way to close to the ground for my liking, so I came up with a pretty smart looking solution that only required minor modifications to the existing frame. My partner says it looks a bit like some bridge in Philly? (I dunno, I've only been to the states once) I don't think I'll be adding any more to the frame at this point except maybe a minimalist protective cover for the PDB (Power distribution brick? :P) and ESCs. Right now it has a dry weight of slightly less than 2KG which is actually slightly less than it was 2 weeks ago. I have some ideas to hopefully shave off ~100g.

Here you can see the drone fully assembled and up close.

Thanks! That's this week's update. Let me know what you think! I've never designed anything this complex before so I'd love to hear your thoughts. Your feedback thus far has been invaluable. Cheers!