New Jersey student's drone breaks speed record

Dec. 11 (UPI) -- A New Jersey student broke a Guinness World Record when his quadcopter drone ascended from the ground to 328 feet in 2.732 seconds.

Zechen Peter Wei, a senior at the Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science, built the drone himself and beat the record of 3.871 seconds, which was set by German engineer Dirk Brunner in 2016.

Yang Yang, PRISMS director of admissions, said Wei worked on his drone for two years.

"He did calculations as per physics and math and saw that this speed can be faster," Yang told Patch. "Over one and half years he worked to improve the function of the quadcopter."

Wei shared video of the drone's speedy ascent on Instagram.

"When thinking about research projects, my instructor, Mr. Kemp, encouraged me to challenge the world record. After a lot of hard work with simulations and trial-and-error, I finally achieved my goal," Wei said.