A drone that carries a ground robot.

The idea

Fly in, drop the tank, keep watching

Drones are great until the battery says no. Ground robots last longer but lose time getting over rubble and fences. Pairing them solves both problems at once.

The plan was simple. Fly in, park, open the ramp, let the ground robot drive off, then reverse it when the job is done. The program was supposed to be about drones in general, so I spent a couple of days convincing everyone this should be the project, with a path toward something a search and rescue crew could actually field. We called the team QuadBots and then switched to a hexacopter. The name stuck.