By This Hour Science Desk
NASA says a student research challenge that paired drone engineering with the practical demands of running a project helped set Gavin Gardner on a path from university prototypes to a company producing drones for military training exercises.
The account traces a five-year progression through two Michigan State University teams selected for NASA’s University Student Research Challenge, known as USRC, a 2024 internship at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, and the late-2024 formation of AG3 Labs with Gardner’s brother and other former challenge participants. The sequence matters because it presents student research not simply as an academic exercise, but as a setting in which technical design, financial management and communication became connected.
NASA’s description also draws a firm line between demonstration and deployment. One team built and flew a full-scale cargo-drone prototype designed to use public transportation as part of a delivery route, but chose not to pursue that idea commercially because of the regulatory obstacles involved in operating over people in dense cities. A later project explored transferring energy to a drone while it was flying. Both efforts were prototypes, rather than evidence that the systems were ready for broad use.
A student project built around a difficult urban-delivery idea
Gardner participated in the Aerial Intra-city Delivery Electric Drones project, or AIDED, in 2021, NASA says. The proposed arrangement sought to address a straightforward limitation of electrically powered drones: the need to manage limited onboard energy while covering a route. Instead of having a cargo drone fly an entire delivery distance, the team examined whether it could dock with public transportation, recharge while the vehicle traveled, then resume flight for the remaining portion of its journey.
The idea placed a drone inside a larger transportation system rather than treating it as an entirely separate delivery vehicle. In the account NASA published, the public-transit vehicle was central to the concept: it would carry the drone for part of the route and provide charging time before the aircraft took off again. That arrangement would require a sequence of operations—takeoff, docking, travel, charging and a further flight—that must all work reliably together.
The AIDED team built and flew a full-scale prototype, according to NASA. That is a significant threshold in a student engineering project because it moves the work beyond an abstract design. Yet the reported outcome was not a commercial launch. The team concluded that the regulatory demands associated with such an operation, particularly flying over people in a crowded urban environment, made the commercial drone market unattractive for its concept.
That distinction is more than a footnote to the project’s outcome. A flight demonstration can show that a proposed vehicle or operating sequence is technically possible under the circumstances of a test. It does not by itself resolve the rules, operational permissions or broader safety questions involved in routine service above populated areas. NASA’s account portrays the team as recognizing those limits rather than treating a successful prototype flight as sufficient grounds for a delivery business.
For Gardner, the project also reportedly revealed that the work around a technical program reaches beyond engineering. NASA says the challenge required students to handle budgets, manage substantial project funds and communicate their work in support of crowdfunding. Those tasks placed financial and public-facing responsibilities alongside the construction and operation of a drone. The agency characterizes that mixture as part of USRC’s aim of supporting teams working on aeronautical research goals.
A second award shifted attention to airborne power
The Michigan State group later received a second USRC award in 2023 for the Laser Energized Aerial Drone System, or LEADS, NASA says. Its focus was different from the transit-linked delivery proposal. LEADS investigated whether a laser could transfer power directly to a drone while it was in flight, addressing energy supply through a beam rather than through a ride on another vehicle and a recharge during transit.
NASA says the team produced a flying prototype for LEADS. The agency’s description establishes that the project investigated in-flight laser power transfer and reached a prototype flight, but it does not provide technical performance data, test conditions, operating range, system efficiency, safety analysis or a route toward practical deployment. Those omissions matter when judging what a prototype result can establish. The published account supports a conclusion that the team explored and flew the concept; it does not establish that the approach is ready for commercial or other operational use.
The second challenge also expanded Gardner’s connection to NASA personnel at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, NASA says. While in graduate school, he applied for and was accepted into an internship there, completing it in 2024. The agency presents that placement as part of the professional network and experience that emerged from the student challenge work.
There is a clear chronology in the agency’s account: the 2021 AIDED project came first, followed by the 2023 LEADS award, then the 2024 internship. The later company formation did not arise from an announced NASA technology transfer or a claim that either student prototype had become a product. Rather, NASA frames the progression as one of accumulated technical experience, project-management exposure and professional contacts.
From alumni network to a military-training business
As Gardner approached completion of his graduate studies, NASA says he, his brother and other USRC alumni took initial steps in late 2024 to establish AG3 Labs. The company focuses on drones for military training exercises. That stated role differs sharply from AIDED’s urban cargo-delivery concept and LEADS’s research into power transfer during flight. The available account does not say that AG3 Labs commercialized either of those projects.
NASA says an initial U.S. Army award was followed by additional contracts for the company. It further says AG3 Labs had production capability measured in thousands of drones each month when the agency’s account was published. The wording concerns capacity, not a verified count of drones delivered, deployed or used in exercises. Nor does the supplied account identify the contracts, their values, their duration, the types of training involved or the specifications of the drones being made.
Those boundaries are important in assessing the company’s reported scale. Production capability can indicate that a manufacturer has arranged processes and capacity for a stated output level. It is not necessarily a measure of present orders, actual monthly manufacturing, financial performance or future demand. NASA’s report links the Army award to subsequent contracts and operational expansion, but the information provided does not allow those commercial claims to be evaluated in detail.
The founder’s reported trajectory nevertheless illustrates the particular kind of bridge NASA says USRC is intended to provide. Its value in this account lies not only in technical experimentation. Students were asked to organize resources, articulate a project’s purpose and deal with the constraints that shape whether an appealing engineering idea can become a viable undertaking. The AIDED team’s decision not to pursue a dense-city delivery business is one example of that constraint operating before a commercial venture began.
AG3 Labs’ stated focus on military training also shows how a team’s eventual market can diverge from its university research. The available material supports a connection of people and skills across the projects, internship and company formation. It does not establish a direct technological continuity from public-transit cargo delivery or laser-powered flight to the company’s training drones. Treating the student projects as formative experience is supported by NASA’s narrative; treating them as the company’s product lineage would go beyond it.
What the agency account can—and cannot—show
NASA is both the sponsor of the university challenge and the publisher of the account, giving it direct relevance to the program, Gardner’s reported participation and the internship. The material is strongest on the agency’s own role: two challenge selections involving Michigan State teams, the broad purposes of the AIDED and LEADS efforts, and Gardner’s 2024 Glenn internship.
Its claims about the subsequent business are more limited in the information available here. NASA reports an Army award, further contracts and capacity to build thousands of drones a month, but provides no underlying award documents, contract records, production records or statements from AG3 Labs in the supplied material. The account also does not independently test the performance, safety or use of the company’s drones.
That leaves a material difference between a well-supported institutional chronology and broader conclusions about a company’s commercial position. NASA’s report makes a plausible case that its student challenge contributed to Gardner’s development as an engineer and entrepreneur. It cannot, on the information supplied, demonstrate that the program alone caused AG3 Labs’ reported growth, or establish the full scope of the company’s government work.
The report has not been independently corroborated. The available information comes from a single NASA-published account, and no separate documentation was supplied for the Army awards, later contracts, claimed manufacturing capacity or the company’s operations. Readers should therefore treat those business-related details as NASA’s reported account rather than independently verified findings.
For further context on this subject, see NASA Fires Developmental RS-25 Engine for Future Artemis Missions.
Reporting notes
What is confirmed: NASA reports full-scale or flying prototypes for both projects, a 2024 Glenn internship, and AG3 Labs’ late-2024 formation.
Why this matters: The account links student aeronautics research and project-management experience to a reported drone-manufacturing venture, while highlighting regulatory limits on urban drone delivery.
What remains unclear: No independent records were supplied for the Army award, further contracts, output capacity, drone specifications or operational use. This report is based on one source and has not been independently corroborated.
