MMA’s Engineering Society Meets with the Missouri S&T Multirotor Drone Team

Contributed by MMA Engineering and Science Instructor Chris Schafer ’89

Missouri Military Academy’s National STEM Honor Society, along with teacher-nominated top cadets from this semester’s science classes, attended National STEM Day at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) on Nov. 5, 2025. During a day of immersive, hands-on activities, MMA cadets toured Missouri S&T’s Student Design and Experimental Learning Center (SDELC).

The SDELC is housed in the Kummer Design Center, where Missouri S&T’s student-led design teams build competition projects, including Solar Car, Combat Robotics, Mars Rover, Rockets, Baja and Formula SAE, and Multirotor Robotics.

Through conversations with SDELC Director Alivia Dean, MMA secured a working meeting between its Engineering Society and the Missouri S&T Multirotor team. This year marks the first year of Missouri Military Academy’s Engineering Society, with eight cadets preparing for the Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Competition and Showcase to be held in April.

The team’s proposed submission is ambitious: a flying wing designed to follow a programmed flight path with autonomous corrections based on in-flight characteristics. The project is led by Cadet Christopher Song, a senior from Southlake, Texas, and an RC model enthusiast.

Prior to the meeting on Dec. 3, MMA cadets submitted 20 questions to the Missouri S&T Multirotor Drone team. The meeting began with MMA cadets presenting their proposed design and reviewing the team’s engineering notebook. Both teams followed the PLTW Design Process, which guides engineering solutions.

All 20 questions were discussed in detail, with Missouri S&T students sharing valuable insight on best practices, team roles and responsibilities, maximizing design and build time, weight and flight characteristics, and RC components best suited for the project.

The day concluded with a tour of the Kummer Design Center, where MMA cadets viewed and asked questions of other Missouri S&T student-led design teams.

Members of the MMA Engineering Society are Cadets Aaden Bado ’26, YiChen Chen ’27, Huy Hoang Dang ’26, Ryan Derstein ’26, Nicolas Kavalenka ’26, Clayton Reich ’26, Christopher Song ’26 and Heshun Xiao ’26.