VEX AIR - Unit 3 - Flight Controls in Motion - Lesson 1: Pitch Forward and Backward

Now that you have learned how to move the virtual VEX AIR Drone in the VEX AIR Flight Simulator, you are ready to begin learning how to further control the drone! In this lesson, you will learn how to control the drone's pitch to move forward and backward.

Watch this video to learn more about:

How to use the right joystick to pitch forward and backward.
How forward and backward motion is created in drones.

<VIDEO HERE>

Hover and Discover

In the video, you learned how to control the drone's pitch. Pitch is the movement that makes a drone tilt forward or backward. A drone changes its pitch by spinning some of its propellers faster than others.

A side by side image of two drones, shown top down. On the left, the two rear propellers are highlighted indicating which propellers spin faster to pitch forward. On the right, the front two propellers are highlighted indicating which propellers spin faster to pitch backward.

When the back propellers spin faster, they push harder against the air, lifting the back of the drone and tilting the front downward. This makes the drone move forward.

When the front propellers spin faster, the front lifts up and the drone tilts backward. This makes the drone move backward. By changing how quickly different propellers spin, the drone can control its pitch and move in the direction it needs to go.

Mission: Fly Through a Ring

In this mission, you will take off, then use your pitch controls to fly forward through the first red ring on the field. Then you will fly backward and land on the platform. Follow these steps to complete your mission:

Connect your controller to VEXcode AIR and select the Simulator tab. Refer to this article for help using the VEX AIR Flight Simulator.
Fly the drone to take off, pitch forward through the first red ring, pitch backward, then land on the platform as shown in this video.
1. Use this Mission Log to document your flight (Google Doc / .docx / .pdf)

Practice this mission multiple times! Keep trying until you can complete the flight with no collisions. Make sure you take notes on each flight in your Mission Log.

Understanding Your Drone

To describe a drone's movement, we use the x, y, and z axes of the Cartesian coordinate system.

The VEX AIR Drone with a green arrow labeled Y pointing away from the front of the drone, a red arrow labeled x pointing away from the done to the left, '[;p[';/p

When describing drone movements:

the z-axis is the drone's throttle, or up and down movement.
the y-axis is the drone's pitch, or forward and backward movement.
the x-axis is the drone's roll, or movement sliding to the left and right (covered in Unit 4).

Using the three axes of the Cartesian coordinate system allow us to clearly communicate about where the drone is and how it moves in 3D space. For example, if we wanted to describe the drone taking off and then flying through the first red ring, we could say it flew up along the z-axis, and then forward along the y-axis.

Check Your Understanding

Select Next > to move to the next lesson.