COE Alum Takes Archery High-Tech

Robert Donahoe, EE‘85 has combined his engineering, business and legal savvy to come up with an ideal solution for his target audience.

A passionate archer armed with engineering ingenuity and a Boston College law degree, Donahoe opted to eschew traditional methods for gauging arrow performance and develop a novel in-flight ballistic measurement system. The company he founded, Full Flight Technology (FFT), has the straightforward goal of providing manufacturers, archery pros and individual archers with hi-tech but easy to use tools to improve the understanding of arrow speed, flight dynamics and bow performance.

FFT’s VELOCITIP Ballistic System employs an arrow-mounted device to provide information about an arrow’s flight characteristics.

“Because the system provides performance information at both the point of arrow launch and the point of target impact, the user can quickly assess whether adjustments in equipment and/or form are beneficial,” explains Donahoe, who put his engineering degree to work for General Electric after graduating from Northeastern.

“Co-op provided a very early introduction into the dynamics of working in a sophisticated business environment,” he says. “These early lessons provided a great foundation that allowed me to more quickly understand how to effectively work with others and handle responsibility through the changes that inevitably occur in the work place and business environment over time. The lessons continue to pay benefit in my role as founder of a technology start-up where I have relied on an international team to assist in the development and launch of a pioneering new technology.”

Cambridge-based FFT teamed with researchers and engineers in the wireless sensor group at Tyndall National Institute in Cork, Ireland to develop VELOCITIP. There’s more than one patent pending for the leading-edge ballistic measurement system … a specialty in intellectual property law comes in handy when you’re an inventor.

“I wanted to be in a profession that would allow me to work so long as I am able, and a career in law provides that,” Donahoe explains. “The decision to go into IP law occurred to me in law school, as I became aware of the opportunities in IP law and how well they fit given my decade-plus years of engineering experience.”

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Related Departments:Electrical & Computer Engineering