My wife is a teacher at a small private school and the science teacher at the school actually teaches a section on circuitry and gets the kids to do hands-on soldering.  She asked me if I'd be able to help her class work on a quadcopter as a lesson.  Sounds incredibly fun to do, but her budget is tiny.  
This year the class is only 2 kids who are very excited but she said she could spare maybe $30 per student for that section.  

Obviously there is no way that's going to be enough money, but I was thinking maybe I could donate some extra parts I have lying around to see how close we can get to a full build and maybe she can get them each a little Hubsan x4 as a reward (since they're around $30).

My question is whether anyone has any ideas about how we could actually get them building something cheap?  
I was thinking maybe with the few extra motors/ESCs I have we might be able to get them each to build a small RC plane.  Now I just have to figure out how to handle the TX/RX cost.

Anyone have suggestions?

An RC plane would be good, you could use foamboard and build something really simple like an FT Flyer or Nutball. Flite Test have loads of free plans to choose from.

http://flitetest.com/articles/FT_Flyer_Scratch_build

Yeah I was thinking something along those lines. I'd have to try it out first myself since I've never done anything with RC outside of my quadcopter.
Any idea if I could use quadcopter motors? What sort of TX/RX could I get in the price range of "cheap" and "not expensive"?

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One thing to note is that the class is actually about soldering....so building a foam board plane doesn't really get them any experience with that.

where do you stay at James? I have quit a few extra frames I'm willing to donate. if you're in the states it would be rather cheap for me to send them to you and you'll get them rather quick.

I was also going to say, approach a couple of hobby shops and see if they are willing to donate a few parts to the school, a lot of places will do it, for a good cause.

If you don't ask you don't know.

But Jimmy's offer is hard to beat, If I was in the US I would donate motors.

Jimmy, I'm in Missouri. Thanks for the generosity but frames I'm ok on. I've got 3 extra sitting around and there are only 2 students this year.
My biggest problems are going to be RX/TX, but I think I might have an answer in HobbyKing's $25 6ch tx/rx.
Also might have a good option for motors too - $10 for a set.

Now I need to figure out ESCs and FC. I have experience with the Flip32 which is only $15 so I might just go with that.

I have a box full of old Simon-k esc's lol and some old 2212 motors I use to use on my 350. who knows one or if both of those two kids might be the next million dollar winner cause of you.

(16-Aug-2016, 04:13 PM)JimmyLe813 Wrote: I have a box full of old Simon-k esc's lol and some old 2212 motors I use to use on my 350. who knows one or if both of those two kids might be the next million dollar winner cause of you.

If you're offering to donate any of that feel free to email me at [email protected] and once I talk more with the teacher I'll bug you about it.

I think I'm going to go with this build: http://rotorbuilds.com/build/1013

$107 (before shipping) for a full LOS build that includes a beginner Transmitter.

The flysky fs t6 tx rx combo is cheap ... just a suggestion .

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I wouldn't recommend it for a real fpv quad but for what your doing I would.