Unsurprisingly, Nick and his crew walked away with the contract.
The other bidders had their complaints, but they all went silent the second the demo video started playing. Compared to Militech's solution—not to mention the actual tech and visual effects—the other proposals looked like school projects. In the drone world, word travels fast, and everyone in the industry already knew about Nick's previous demo in Seattle. Most of them were just kicking themselves that DJI had managed to lock him down first.
Of course, the proposal wasn't without its hurdles. The biggest sticking point for the city council was the price tag. DJI put in a quote for $120 million, a number that made the local officials wince.
Innovation isn't cheap. But at the end of the day, the Mayor gave it the green light. The logic was simple: if this show could put Miami on the global stage and redefine the city's image as a high-tech hub, $120 million was a steal. Even better, a 10,000-drone swarm would set a world record, proving the city—and the country—was still the undisputed leader in cutting-edge tech.
Once the ink was dry, the real work began. The timeline was brutal. Managing a 10,000-unit swarm in a dense, complex urban environment for 25 minutes was a massive engineering undertaking.
Step one: hardware. The initial 4,000 drones had basically wiped out DJI's regional inventory. Ryan had to scramble to get the remaining 6,000 units into production immediately. Manufacturing that many drones meant the factory would be running 24/7 for at least three weeks.
On top of that, the internals needed a total overhaul to handle the network demands and precision flight control required for a swarm that size. The new units could be handled at the factory, but the original 4,000 drones had to be retrofitted manually, which was a massive time sink.
Then came the testing phase—endless rounds of network pings, system stability checks, stress tests, and interference jamming. You don't just "show up" for a performance like this. You're facing hundreds of thousands of people on the ground and millions more watching online. If a single thing goes wrong, there's no "undo" button in the age of viral livestreams.
The pressure was suffocating. The experts on the council had been hesitant to approve such a bold plan, but the Mayor had seen something in Nick's eyes—a quiet confidence—and decided to take the gamble.
Nick and Ryan knew how rare an opportunity this was, and they went all out. Throughout May and June, Nick lived on-site in Miami. Working side-by-side with Ryan's team, they ran countless simulations and optimizations on the "Sky-Wing" system until it was flawless. With DJI's hardware backing and a massive budget, Nick was able to make some incredibly aggressive upgrades to the software, pushing its swarm-control capabilities far beyond the original prototype.
During that entire stretch, Nick only left once—for a technical summit regarding the "Smart Warehousing" project for the new joint venture with SpaceX. Zack was technically leading that project, but since it was the first big sit-down and Zack was still the "new guy," Nick had to show face. Besides, while Zack was great with the application side, he didn't quite have a handle on the core "black box" code yet. Whenever the engineers hit a wall, Nick had to be there to bail them out.
SpaceX was taking the project seriously, handing over a brand-new automated fulfillment center at their Tampa logistics hub for research. Having a real-world playground was huge for the R&D team, but it came with a catch: everything had to be tested and validated before the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping rush.
If they didn't have results by then, they'd have to strip the tech out and restore the warehouse to its original state to avoid messing with the holiday shipping window. It was a race against the clock; if they missed the deadline, they'd be waiting until next year to get back inside.
And then there was the ongoing work with the defense research team in D.C. Even while buried in Miami, Nick stayed in constant contact with the military scientists. He knew the outdoor live-fire swarm tests were slated for late September, and he'd have to be on-site for every trial leading up to it.
Between the record-breaking light show, the SpaceX warehouse, and the Pentagon contracts, Nick's calendar was a war zone. From now until the 4th of July, he wasn't going to get a single day of sleep.