The British business magnate Sr. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines and Virgin Galactic among many other ventures, once said about his love of flying: “The fascination of flight can’t be expressed with words. It really lies beyond the capabilities of human endeavor.”
When speaking with Zak Tremblay, the McGill University mechanical engineering undergraduate who is the principal of Team Tremblay in the global GoAERO competition, one quickly gets a sense he feels the same way about aviation. Indeed, Zak says, “I've always wanted to be an engineer, and what struck me about aviation was this little dream that everyone can relate to, of wanting to fly. Skydiving with a wingsuit has always been on my bucket list. Also, my last internship was at the Canadian Space Agency and it was a bunch of fun.”
That youthful exuberance and passion permeates the native Montrealer’s current endeavors designing and building drones, including one that won an aerial competition in Canada. It is a remarkable achievement, made even more so because he, and the fellow McGill students who worked with him on that drone, were basically novices when they won.
“I had been interested in drones for a long time, so I decided to start a drone club at McGill,” Zak relates. “But to design and build one, I had to first learn all about avionics, relevant software, and other things.”
He must have been a quick study because the first flyer he and his classmates built took third place in a Vertical Flight Society competition, while another of their drones won an aerial competition last year.
Having designed and manufactured drones for the past four years, Zak feels ready to take the next step – entering and striving to fulfill the requirements and humanitarian mission of the GoAERO competition: “I’m ecstatic to try out this kind of build in real life. It’s a perfect opportunity to apply my knowledge and technical skills to an actual useful project with a purpose.”
Zak -- who has experience building drones involving blended wings and are tail sitters (vertical flyers that take-off and land on their tails) -- envisions building a flyer using multiple new technologies that have been part of his own research and that he has already been “bench-testing,” just not yet on flight. “I will make my flyer stand out by designing it using these technologies. It could change the world and emergency response by providing faster, cheaper and more widespread coverage than modern ambulances -- all while being based on sustainable energy propulsion.”
Zak notes that even in the middle of a thriving metropolis like Montreal, where he still lives, there are problems getting ambulances and other emergency response transportation to where they need to be in a timely manner because of road repairs and traffic.
So, Zak wants to focus his flyer on emergencies within urban cities, because “in my opinion, the time spent in an elevator or staircase or stuck in traffic constitutes precious minutes wasted by First Responders.”
What he doesn’t find wasteful is all the technical advice he has been receiving from the GoAERO expert webinars. “I’ve already learned so much from them, especially the one on automation,” he exclaims. “My only complaint is that there aren’t even more of them.”
And even if his emergency response flyer doesn’t make it to the Final Fly-Off, participation in GoAERO will not have been a waste of time for Zak. He says his “biggest challenge at the moment is figuring out what I don't know. I have previously dealt with designing and manufacturing drones up to 20kg in weight, but nothing of the size that this competition is requesting.”
So by getting help from all possible sources – including the GoAERO webinars, Zak says, ”I will have gained knowledge about cutting-edge aircraft technology and emergency rescue responses.”
And that determination and perseverance would probably make Richard Branson, one of the people Zak calls an inspiration, proud. He adds, “One of my high school science teachers has always pushed me to go above and beyond. She still follows me on LinkedIn whenever I post about recent accomplishments. She inspired me to be the best version of myself and to pursue science and engineering more profoundly.”