TEAM SEVEN stands for Trajectory Efficient Autonomous Mission for Surveillance Endurance and Vehicle Energy Needs. We are a senior projects team in the Aerospace department at the University of Colorado Boulder focusing on autonomous aircraft operating in austere environments. If you would like to learn more about our work please visit our CU page. 

Algorithms Lead

Alessandro bravely pushed the boundaries of the team's path creation and optimization software, applying sophisticated mathematical algorithms to efficiently create flight constraint topologies and ideal transit curves in even the most complicated geographic areas.

Website: alessandrothevillain.com

Hardware Lead

Alex designed and built the aerial system hardware package. His extensive knowledge of microavionics allowed us to run seven flight tests and recover from two crashes. Alex got us flying and kept us flying.

Navigations Lead

Bennett was the power source, motor, and rudder of the navigations team. He provided direction while also endlessly toiling to ensure functioning aerodynamic models and increasing robustness of the path planning software. 

Project Manager

The leader of our slightly overventuresome yet cohesive team continued to motivate us to new heights each week to produce a quality finished product. Furthermore, Kevin took the time to get into the nitty gritty and aid in the onerous task of creating a custom MAVLink communications link within python.

Flight Controls Team Lead

What did Collin do? What didn't Collin do! He worked on every team, solving the difficult problems no one else could, essentially everything but the airframe.

Integration Engineer

Ethan's knowledge of the entire architecture allowed him to create the connective tissue between everyone's work. He was able to turn data into usable waypoints and pass it to MAVLink. He wrote the words that allowed us to speak to each other. 

Lead Systems Engineer

Jacob worked tirelessly to continuously understand all aspects of the project and aid in how each unit contributed to the larger work of the team. His indefatigable efforts to integrate software spilling in from a plethora of team members was herculean.

Hardware and Safety Specialist

Maklen came each day with a gritty mindset only matched by his perseverance in the gym. As the primary developer of safety protocols, Maklen was crucial in ensuring the readiness of the airframe and preparation of the flight test team.

Software Engineer

Max strengthened the robustness of the navigation software through multiple functions that tenaciously enabled the flight software to seamlessly change paths in real time. His positive attitude amidst thankless work empowered a greater team culture.

Software and Networking Engineer, Test Pilot

Pilot extraordinaire, patient GitHub guide, and fashion symbol; Mike worked laboriously each day to ensure innovation in our project, drudging through research papers to provide unique ideas and novel problem solving. Further, Mike rescued multiple airframes mid-flight through incredible maneuvers that can only be described as miraculous.

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-miller2023

Systems engineer and Financial Officer

Sam was an essential component in keeping the team organized. He kept us heading in the right direction when the path was unclear. His problem-solving intuition was essential when designing systems, and his data analysis algorithms ensured mission success. 

Website: www.linkedin.com/in/samuelhhatton/ 

Gooey (GUI) Man

The fearless Ty Banach buccaneered the arduous task of developing a graphical interface to accommodate the most obtuse of users (we all have that friend).