I Vibecoded A Drone

The Vibecoded Drone is a 50-pound heavy-lift aircraft designed and built over about a month using AI-assisted 'vibecoding'—where the creator, lacking aeronautical engineering skills, relied on AI models like chatty g and claude to generate designs and code. It features a quadplane configuration that combines a paramotor, turbine, and quadcopter rotors. The drone was created to enter the DARPA Lift Challenge, a competition requiring heavy-lift capabilities. The build process involved rapid prototyping with foam, carbon fiber, fiberglass, and custom-built battery packs, including on-site assembly and testing. While the drone only achieved a brief hop before crashing, the experience demonstrates a workflow for iterative, fast-paced drone development. It's intended for makers, hobbyists, and innovators who want to explore heavy-lift drone design and AI-driven prototyping.