It’s the Season of Drone Challenges Courtesy of DARPA, FCC, and Others

At some point, it learned what I was trying to do and it substituted the basic Lambda calculation with a Lambda equation it digested from the millions of books it scanned. This inflated the actual Lambda by ~2X, making me think I had an 8:1 winning DARPA ratio.

After a couple of weeks of tuning Lambda, I actually caught what Gemini did, had it compute the correct value, and my heart completely sank with an actual ratio in the 4s. Of course, it was programmed to respond with the usual “I’m sorry Dave” nonsense, and then I prompted it with my notation that I saw an ICE solution which may be able to do 6:1 (“MacGyver”?). At this point, it said electric motors were impossible to beat ICE solutions because of energy density and I should quit the project (it was guarding the amount of compute time I was consuming on the $20/month plan — enough to drain a small lake).

Nonetheless, I had it use the correct Lambda, iterated a fresh design cycle for a few days, and got the ratio past 6:1. Unfortunately, I ran out of time, burning precious weeks on the helicopter Lambda boondoggle. Using the AI cost me $2.5M and burned over a month of my after-hours time. I need to find a lawyer on 50% contingency.

Between being a full-time editor and keeping a semblance of a family life, I could not recover the schedule, could not demonstrate the build progress milestone to DARPA, and wasn’t invited to attend the challenge flyoff. Here’s hoping they have another challenge next year.

So, I now get to analyze others’ designs for our readers.

Some of the Selected Lift Challengers

“The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on June 8 [2026] announced invitations to 72 teams to demonstrate innovative drone designs capable of carrying at least four times their weight.

The list of invitees for the Lift Challenge this August includes inventors, startups, aerospace companies and universities. Driftless Robotics, EasyBreezy Heavy Lift, Kansas City Space Pirates, MacGyver, Squishy Tech, Stoner Aero and YGGY Aviation will be competing with Avalon Aero, Avidrone Inc., two Burl Aerospace teams, teams from Penn State Univ., the Univ. of Maryland, Arizona State Univ. and others for $6.5 million in prize money.” – Aviation Tech Today

Here’s my take on some of the teams’ designs, with what little information is out there:

Jakadofsky’s Evolution 22-hp 8-lb. turboshaft engine claims 200-lb. lift capability in a helicopter drone. A comment in their YouTube video says it’s $22,000. They were invited to the flyoff as a team in the challenge, so I’m guessing it’s a helicopter configuration that’s being entered. Choppers have yet to bust 1:1 in full scale, so no idea where this one will wind up.