Spirit XII was designed by the 2022 Team and is Team Animus Ferus’ first quadcopter design. Spirit XII is a new, custom-fabricated UAV designed to accomplish the competition objectives by accumulating the most points possible. Spirit XII builds on the success and lessons learned from prior competitions, incorporates new research and technology, and was ready to achieve a remarkably competitive overall score.

Designed to accomplish the 2022 Mission Objectives, Spirit XII is in a position to fly farther and faster than the team’s previous craft, Spirit XI .Spirit XII’s maximum speed is 50 mph and its maximum flight range is 10 miles, a remarkable upgrade over Spirit XI, which had a maximum speed of 40 mph and a maximum flight range of 8 miles.

Spirit XII was stress tested, analyzed, and meticulously prepared, with dozens of various designs being vetted before the quadcopter design was chosen. Each major part was designed by the Team to outpreform their individual requirements than anything on the open market.

When designing each part, certain factors had to be taken under consideration.Not only did each part need to be resilient enough to face up to the complete spectrum of forces that were visiting be applied thereto during the course of the flight, but some parts also had to be made to shield more dangerous or fragile inner workings, all the while weight had to be cut wherever possible.

During the AirDrop portion of the mission, Spirit XI dropped the UGV, which was designed to transport an 8 oz water bottle payload to its final destination. The rover would be lowered by a spool and slowed down by a dynamic braking, where it would then be deployed on land. The rover then proceeds autonomously to its final destination.

Spirit XI flew in the 2022 competition where Team Animus Ferus managed to secure another top five placement at fourth place.  Spirit XII flew the course quickly and efficiently at the competition, and was one of two high schools which finished with a top 10 placement.

Team Animus Ferus secured 5th in the mission flight, 11th in the Flight Readiness Review, and 19th in the Technical Design Paper, finishing fourth overall.