How Do Drones Fly Like Birds?

A drone doesn’t have wings like an airplane or feathers like a bird, so how does it stay up in the sky?

Most small drones have four spinning fans on top, called propellers. As they spin super fast, they push air downwards. Just like how swimming pushes water back to move you forward, pushing air down pushes the drone UP!

To go forward, the two propellers in the back spin slightly faster than the ones in the front, tilting the drone so it swooshes through the sky.

In FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC), you learn the same physics and programming that drone pilots use to control flying robots!