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Red Cat Holdings Controller Improvement 

For this project, I was contacted by a group of 4 mechanical engineering students at Syracuse University who were paired with Red Cat Holdings Inc. Red Cat Holdings designs, manufactures and sells defence drones to the US government. The Engineering students were tasked to create an improved drone controller that has a secondary screen for GPS display.

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On the left is the original design that I was sent from their first CAD mock-up. After initial FEA/ structure testing, they noticed a lack of shock dampening in their model. What I was assigned to do to the model was to create exterior fillets /chamfers to increase dampening and to check for usability / ergonomic considerations.

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When we returned to discuss our ideas, some of the improvements we found that we needed were:

  • A sunshade for the lower screen

  • A finger afforance on the upper component (ease of opening)

  • Interior fillets around screen/buttons

  • An improved friction-fit hinge

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Stage 1:

  • Sunshade

  • Friction-fit hinge

Stage 2:

  • Finger affordance 

  • Interior + exterior fillets

  • Improved turning knob

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After further FEA testing of the improved model, the exterior fillets dramatically improved the dampening of impact when dropped on the corners of the top component. The ergonomic considerations improved the product's ease of use and screen accessibility.

Final Product:

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Bottom orthographic 

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Top orthographic 

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