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Марія БровінськаWeapon
27 October 2025, 09:00
2025-10-27
“You are either in the army or for the army.” Capgemini Engineering from Aitivka and friends organized a mini-company to assemble FPV drones. How Quad Damage helps destroy the enemy and protect the lives of Ukrainian soldiers
«There is no pathos here. There is no office with a coffee machine. There is rations, engines, smoke and videos from the front line, where every drone saves a life.» This is a brief description of what the Capgemini Engineering IT workers do in their free time with like-minded friends. They call their volunteer organization for drone manufacturing Quad Damage. dev.ua talked to one of the community members, Mykhailo Sudyn, a Capgemini Engineering developer, and found out how Quad Damage was created, what the organization’s members produce, and who finances them.
«There is no pathos here. There is no office with a coffee machine. There is rations, engines, smoke and videos from the front line, where every drone saves a life.» This is a brief description of what the Capgemini Engineering IT workers do in their free time with like-minded friends. They call their volunteer organization for drone manufacturing Quad Damage. dev.ua talked to one of the community members, Mykhailo Sudyn, a Capgemini Engineering developer, and found out how Quad Damage was created, what the organization’s members produce, and who finances them.
How it all began
Mykhailo says that at the end of 2022, his colleague and friend told him that he and his brother had opened a commercial non-profit company for the production of FPV drones. «That was the first time I heard about this abbreviation and joked that it would be interesting to try flying it, and he agreed to send me a drone from their first large batch,» the IT worker says. This, Mykhailo describes, was a «bare» drone, without even nuts to screw on the propellers. However, at that time, the initiators of the production had the idea of modifying the firmware to make the drones more resistant to electronic warfare, and Mykhailo decided to try to help with this.
«I started Googling, reading, figuring things out, ordering components, tools, and equipment, asking engineers, and at the same time soldering my first drone for testing,» says the developer.
When Mykhailo made a working version of the custom firmware and handed it over to the engineers, he decided to continue working on quantity.
In mid-2023, the IT guy sent the first mini-batch of three birds to engineers, who tested them, flew them around, and handed them over to the military. And about a week later, he received the first videos of the drones working. «It was a very exciting moment. Then I realized that I needed more of them, much more. Gradually, my friends caught up and started to grow,» says Sudyn.
The inventors' motivation is the death of the invaders and the saved lives of the Ukrainian military. «The pilots' feedback about a hit target or a repulsed assault only adds to it,» says Mykhailo.
What Quad Damage makes
Like-minded volunteers specialize in radio-controlled FPV kamikaze quadcopters, but sometimes they also make reusable drones with resets upon request. «There were cases when the military converted our kamikazes into bombers, because there are not so many good-quality drones. We also occasionally repair drones that the military gives us,» says Mykhailo.
He states: unfortunately, there are a large number of defective drones in warehouses that either do not fly at all or, even worse, are dangerous for pilots.
«At first, everything was a challenge. To create custom firmware for a specific target, you had to do some research. And adding altitude hold so that after turning on this mode, the drone wouldn’t jump up or fall 10 meters is another challenge,» says Mykhailo.
Now, he adds, the biggest challenge is to quickly adapt to the constantly changing needs of the army. «The drones that worked two months ago may already be irrelevant today,» he explains. According to the IT specialist, currently each bird is a custom product for the needs of a specific unit. «We don’t do anything just like that, we communicate with the pilots, we find out what exactly they need to perform tasks. Different units, in different areas, for different needs often require completely different components. Anyone who follows Serhiy Sternenko has seen his recent posts about state drones, how often they lag behind in updating components, as a result of which pilots cannot use them and waste a lot of time and resources on their rework,» says Mykhailo.
Financing
Quad Damage’s activities are financed by donations. The guys considered the possibility of cooperation with foundations and grantmakers, however, the desire to provide the army with high-quality drones for free, as quickly as possible, optimally took priority over reports and formalization of activities. «This is time and resources that I would like to use more usefully,» Mykhailo notes.
According to the IT worker, he is disgusted by business during the war. «Although I understand with my brain that it would be easier to develop and expand production in some way, for now I like the current work model the most. Nothing is complicating our work at the moment,» the specialist says.
Mykhailo adds: there is bureaucracy, and while now the guys can quickly assemble and send drones to a specific pilot in a matter of days, during the work through the charity fund model, restrictions are imposed in the form of acceptance and transfer acts and other paperwork. «Perhaps in the future we will reconsider our position,» the IT worker states.
Quad Damage does not compete with other volunteers, but rather cooperates.
«We exchange experience from time to time, sometimes we help each other. I don’t see competition as such at all, we are all working on the same thing, the more drones for the army, the better,» says Mykhailo.
He emphasizes: Quad Damage is not a foundation or a startup. It’s a drone company that simply does its job.
The guys started with firmware and customization for electronic warfare. Currently, their advantage is in the attention to detail of each manufactured unit — they test every drone. «It happens that other volunteers or drone factories do not test drones at all, or every tenth or hundredth drone. This is not enough, because mistakes can always be made, and components, no matter how high-quality or expensive they are, can be defective, and it is necessary to make sure that the drone will be able to perform its task, and especially not harm the military,» says Mykhailo. Non-working and defective drones need to be repaired, and repair or rework is often a rather labor-intensive process. Therefore, sometimes the military sends the guys such drones for repair.
Quad Damage currently has seven jobs, but up to 15 people can be hired during peak hours. The team spent about UAH 100,000 to set up the workshop. «Most of it is the members’ own money — they donated something, friends borrowed something, friends gave something,» Mykhailo explains. The team also buys all consumables at their own expense, as well as covers logistics costs.
«We spend the donations exclusively on components. Specialists sometimes receive a waffle cake with tea, or whatever they bring with them,» says Mykhailo.
He adds that certain types of drones can be assembled in half an hour, but if there are specific requirements, it can take several days or more to build the first drone in a batch. «For example, sometimes there is a requirement to develop specific fastening elements for some parts, for this you need to model them, print them, test them, refine them, and so on until we approve the version for the entire batch. And then the rest is a „conveyor belt“,» the specialist explains.
Imported pains
Currently, Quad Damage specialists assemble drones mostly from imported components. And it happens that some of them need to be replaced urgently.
«If the ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) or one of the motors is defective, then usually the drone simply falls on one of the beams, and if the FC (Flight Controller) is defective, then the drone can do quite a somersault and can damage other parts or specialists. That’s why defective FCs „hurt“ the most,» laughs Mykhailo.
He notes that from time to time, components from Ukrainian manufacturers come into our hands, and some are even better in quality than Chinese ones, but mostly more expensive.
The biggest problem with imports, according to the specialist, is the delivery time. «Sometimes you have to buy Chinese components in Ukraine at a higher price, because it’s trivially faster, and the needs of the military are often urgent (for yesterday),» argues Mykhailo. Now, he shares, the guys managed to find high-quality and inexpensive stacks of a Ukrainian manufacturer, tested and approved by the military, so in the next batch of drones, the «heart» will be of Ukrainian production.
Where Quad Damage drones operate
Drones from Ukrainian IT professionals, managers, and entrepreneurs from the Quad Damage team have already worked in a large number of areas: in Kherson, Sumy, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions.
The guys sent their birds to the 25th Separate Airborne Brigade, the 413th Separate Rifle Battalion of the 43rd Brigade, the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade, the 59th Separate Assault Brigade, the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade, the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, and the Separate Presidential Brigade.
«I probably won’t remember them all now, but it so happened that the largest number of drones were transferred to the first and second battalions of the 54th Motorized Rifle Brigade. Our drone even managed to appear on the Butusov+ channel in a frame with Kirill Veres,» says Mykhailo.
Reviews of Quad Damage drones are usually very positive. However, there are also problems. «There was a case when in one of the batches the video transmitters were of lower power than stated in the specifications. We no longer use such video transmitters,» says Mykhailo. In his «treasure trove of stories» from military personnel who use the drones, there are many that can be told after victory. And one of the pilots asked to make him a drone as a keepsake after the war, because he had very warm associations with these drones.
«Such feedback definitely lifts the spirits of the entire team,» says Mykhailo.
He adds that now the main emphasis in requests, in addition to quality and technical capabilities, the military places on the number of drones. «They influence the course of the war, they help our military, they carry BC, water and batteries for radios, they defend themselves with them, they destroy enemy equipment and manpower with them. They are accurate and effective. They need 140 million of them,» says the IT expert.
How IT helps make drones
The main profession of the people involved in creating drones helps them methodically support Quad Damage financially. In addition, the experience of leadership and team management helps Mikhail practice both at work and outside of it — assembling drones.
«If you had deep knowledge of embedded, it could significantly help in modifying firmware, because knowledge of only high-level programming languages is not enough to work effectively with C,» he says.
Experience in 3D modeling, in turn, can allow you to create specific, non-classical solutions. But in general, says Mykhailo, a more analytical and technical mindset, often inherent in IT professionals, is needed to solve the tasks and problems that arise when working with drones.
In the future, Sudyn and his team aim to expand production capabilities, but everything depends primarily on funding. Experts are also considering going beyond the FPV, as the needs of the military are changing, but not in an entrepreneurial format.
«Currently, there are no thoughts of evolving into a business. We assemble drones for donations and our own funds, or sometimes on order, at cost price. All funds go to purchase new components — everyone in the team is not here for the money. You are either in the army or for the army,» admits Mykhailo.
How to help Quad Damage
The world has already realized that war has changed and the future is in drones. Ukraine was the first to start mass-producing cheap FPV drones, and they have shown remarkable efficiency. Kamikaze drones, bombers, long-range drones, interceptor drones — all this has changed the rules of the game. Technologies are developing, and with the experience gained, Ukraine can be an advanced player in this direction — other countries have a lot to learn, Mykhailo is convinced.
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