08-17, 11:00–11:50 (US/Eastern), Little Theatre
This talk focuses on a project with medical students in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico to develop affordable delivery drones that can get urgent medical supplies to remote communities. What currently takes days to reach by mule through mountainous terrain can hopefully be accomplished in minutes by air. This talk chronicles the evolution from off-the-shelf hobby planes to locally-built, 3D-printed aircraft capable of autonomous waypoint missions. The speakers will discuss the technical choices behind their current $1000 prototype (and how they plan to cut costs in half), alongside the organizational structure they’re developing to sustain this work. Recently, they established “club guilas” with local medical students - one of whom has completed pilot training for the test aircraft. The biggest challenges faced aren’t the technical ones, but rather organizational sustainability: how to transition from a project driven by visiting engineers to one owned and operated by local communities. Plans will be shared for creating a federated network of university clubs, and the blueprint for a lean nonprofit structure to support them.
Dana Gretton is a multidisciplinary maker interested in applied linear algebra, security hardware, autonomous planes, UV air sterilization, and VR interface design (notably the Bird 3D cursor). Outside of tech, he enjoys riding electric unicycles, writing Chinese characters, making glass beads, and singing. His current projects focus on rethinking education with new tools like *DAS (decentralized accreditation), engineering mentorship, and cooperative living.
Jaguar Kristeller (he/him) is an Alaskan-grown, MIT ’16 mechanical engineer and passionate educator committed to working in climate mitigation, public education reform, personal data empowerment, and digital governance systems. Having spent 5 years in China post-graduation, he speaks fluent self-taught Chinese, and now lives in Boston, working between the US and China in IoT manufacturing. Some of his notable achievements include: helping start a high school, Moonshot Academy, in Beijing, co-developing a decentralized accreditation system (starDAS), and volunteering to develop a fleet of autonomous fixed-wing emergency medical delivery drones in rural Mexico. To learn more, please visit www.kriste11er.com/vision.html
