Project Quiver is moving from monthly funding requests to a phased project proposal, a format change agreed on the August 4 team call so the DAO can see where funds go against a roadmap rather than a rolling monthly ask. The Houston build concluded July with eleven flights across five sessions, including a 20.7 minute endurance record. August delivered the US meetup build week, where the team built and tested multiple working payload attachments, and closed with the aircraft back in the air: twelve flights across three field days opened the obstacle avoidance flight validation campaign. Full details are in the July and August progress reports.
This proposal also restructures how Quiver pays for work. The project moves from six monthly retainers to one retained lead plus a priced task board, cutting the monthly commitment burn 31% (from $8,760 to $6,000). July and August commitment grants are covered retroactively at the old rates. Remaining unassigned funds on the project multisig will be consolidated into QGB-FLEX, the project’s standing discretionary bucket, which now carries an operator onboarding fund, commercial readiness work, and an open task pool. The total treasury request is $35,520 USDC, 19% below what the outgoing structure would have asked for the same period, with the go forward burn cut carrying the savings into every future period. No new $ARROW is requested. July and August retroactive grants distribute from the retro reserves already held on the multisig (the July 6,000 executed on chain August 31), and the 10,000 $ARROW Flight Test Campaign approved in April carries forward.
Proposal Breakdown
| Category | Budget |
|---|---|
| Commitment grant back pay (July + August, six contributors, old rates) | $17,520 from treasury |
| Project Lead retainer (September to November, 20 hrs/week) | $18,000 from treasury |
| Task board (September to November) | Funded by the $18,786.83 already on the multisig: $10,150.00 of honored commitments plus the $8,636.83 QGB-FLEX discretionary balance, no new ask |
| August expense reimbursements (build, attachments, meetup flight) | $1,480.82 paid August 31 from existing QGB-FLEX funds, no new ask |
| Retroactive Grants (July + August) | 30,000 $ARROW allocation, 12,750 distributed (July 6,000 executed August 31, August 6,750 decided), from held reserves, no new ask |
| Retroactive Grants (September to November) | Requested at the roadmap checkpoint and phase close |
| Flight Test Campaign | 10,000 $ARROW (carried from April, no new ask) |
Total Treasury Request: $35,520 USDC
Compensation Restructure
Since March the project has run six monthly retainers ($8,760 per month) purchased against meeting attendance and general availability, with deliverables priced separately as bounties. The intent is to avoid retainers paying out regardless of output, to progress the bounties that sat unclaimed or stalled, and to keep the project lead from absorbing unassigned work by default. With treasury liquidity tightening across the DAO, Quiver is restructuring to pay for output.
From September 1:
- One retained contributor. The Project Lead moves to 20 hours per week at $6,000 per month, covering flight operations, task board administration, documentation, treasury execution, and reporting. This holds the current hourly rate while doubling the committed time.
- A priced task board replaces the other five retainers. Tasks carry a price, an owner or open status, a deadline, and a definition of done, and pay on acceptance. The board lives in the project repository, funded with the honored bounty commitments and the QGB-FLEX earmarks below. The obstacle avoidance campaign’s flight and review work is compensated from the QGB-02 allocation, and future flight clearance reviews are priced as tasks as they arise.
- Retroactive $ARROW continues monthly for contributions nobody assigned, drawn from the held reserves.
July and August back pay comes at the old rates from the treasury transfer, since that work was performed under the standing arrangement. No bounty allocation is redirected to payroll. Instead, the allocations that sat idle under the old structure are consolidated into QGB-FLEX, following the convention set in July that QGB-FLEX is the standing catch-all for surpluses and returns:
| Consolidated into QGB-FLEX | Amount |
|---|---|
| QGB-04 Wind Limit Study (never started, its dataset does not yet exist, and the study returns at the checkpoint once it does) | $3,000.00 |
| QGB-01 unassigned funds | $3,480.21 |
| QGB-FLEX top up | $6,480.21 |
With its own $1,781.62 of unassigned funds and the existing $375 Marketing Discovery line, QGB-FLEX stands at $8,636.83 remaining and carries the following earmarks:
| QGB-FLEX earmark | Amount | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Operator onboarding fund | $1,500.00 | Earmarked to get a second operator flying, deployed against itemized onboarding costs (shipping, parts, setup support), with the flights themselves paid from the flight test campaign pool |
| Commercial readiness | $1,000.00 | Reliability metrics page build and sales page execution |
| Marketing & Sales Page Discovery (existing) | $375.00 | Deliverable in review before filing |
| Unassigned (the open task pool) | $5,761.83 | Prices new tasks as phases surface them (the approved oscilloscope draws from here), replenished at the checkpoint |
After the consolidation, the multisig’s $18,786.83 of USDC matches its obligations to the cent: $10,150.00 of honored commitments (QGB-02 $4,000, QGB-05 $3,000, QGB-03 $600, QGB-01 first time setup $300, Platform Engineering Report $500, Pilot’s Handbook $1,000, Attachment Developer Guide $750) plus the $8,636.83 QGB-FLEX balance above. QGB-05 Attachment Development keeps its full $3,000 for the V2 latch, V2 camera, and dispenser work, drawing on QGB-FLEX unassigned if the V2 pricing outgrows it. The $1,480.82 of August expense reimbursements (documented costs from the Houston build, attachment building, and the meetup flight, itemized in the compensation spreadsheet) were paid August 31 from QGB-FLEX under its standing discretionary purpose, using existing funds.
Roadmap Overview
| Phase | Window | Focus | Exit criteria |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | September | Flight validation | Avoidance enabled flight flown, GPS interference characterized and dual GPS restored, documentation backlog merged to GitHub, task board live, August retro distributed |
| 2 | October | Attachments | Attachment interface redesign decided and replacement ordered, first attachment flying on the interface, endurance study delivered |
| 3 | November | Product definition and operations scale | Product refinement scope adopted with a named owner, engineering report published, dev-kit pricing and reliability metrics published |
Phase 1 — Flight Validation (September)
The aircraft is flying, the ground work is done, and the month focuses on finalizing obstacle avoidance and navigation.
- Resolve the flight card review with Zeynep, apply her parameter recommendations, complete the flight card sequence through the first avoidance enabled flight, and upload the campaign logs to the flight tracking platform (QGB-02).
- Close the GPS interference investigation: characterize the switch emissions with the oscilloscope, run the motors on throttle sweep that separates switch noise from ESC and power stage coupling, compare parameters and part sourcing against the clean build, apply shielding, and restore dual GPS after a clean validation flight. The oscilloscope (about $600, approved August 27) draws from QGB-FLEX unassigned.
- Run formal heat testing, sun soak then fly, with thermal imaging.
- Land the repository sync that publishes the local documentation backlog: merge the Initial Configuration Guide (PR #232) with the complete flight and obstacle avoidance commissioning record, publish the approved First Flight Checklist, the Pilot’s Handbook recalibration section, and the failure report issue form, and carry the Manufacturing Guide, SDK Developer Guide, and engineering report updates in the same push. Complete the sessions four and five flight record write ups as part of the merge.
- Publish the patched baseline parameter files. The June safety fixes (a working low battery voltage failsafe and fully active arming checks) exist only in the local working copy, and the published baseline still carries the original defects.
- Stand up the task board in the project repository, seeded with the honored bounty commitments and the QGB-FLEX earmarks as priced tasks, and make the first assignments.
- Complete the battery failsafe source design review with Zeynep (Bat1 voltage versus Bat2 BMS state of charge) and export a fresh parameter restore point capturing the warning only failsafe posture.
- Adopt the SSR auto engage script and relay parameters into the baseline parameter files and SD card image, so every new build closes the main power relay safely from first boot.
- Publish the info notes and design files for the meetup latch and multispectral camera builds.
- Retest the Starlink Mini attachment with a different regulator (Thomas).
- Complete the configuration guide review, with the reviewer redetermined at the start of the phase, and reconcile the first time setup line (QGB-01).
- Finalize the flight test campaign payment mechanics before any payment draws from the pool, and stand up the operator onboarding fund alongside them.
- Troubleshoot the gimbal to flight controller return path and the QGroundControl video stream.
- File the marketing discovery deliverable and close its $375 line (QGB-FLEX).
- Scope the flight data logging with Zeynep so the endurance study completes in Phase 2 and the wind range dataset accumulates toward the checkpoint (QGB-03).
- Distribute the August retroactive grants (the July distribution executed on chain August 31).
Phase 2 — Attachments (October)
Meetup prototypes become products, with the FAA path running in parallel under Javelina Propeller Laboratory.
- Carry the latch and multispectral camera V1 designs toward flight ready V2 attachments funded from the QGB-05 allocation with QGB-FLEX as overflow, decide the dispenser path after its field test, and scope or formally park the floodlight under the same attachment umbrella (QGB-05).
- Decide the attachment interface replacement and mechanical redesign, and place the order, closing the supply risk carried since May.
- Bring up the Starlink Mini telemetry path on the side attachment interface, telemetry first, control later.
- Complete the endurance metrics study against the accumulated campaign log corpus (QGB-03).
- Enter the Remote ID identity into the aircraft once registration numbers arrive from the FAA workstream under Javelina Propeller Laboratory.
- Document the compliance boundary for attachment changes on an aircraft under 55 lb, coordinating the re-certification question with the Javelina workstream.
- Post and progress the Attachment Developer Guide bounty from the completed scope document (QGB-01).
- Integrate QuiverHub onto the Raspberry Pi and bridge its documentation into the configuration guide (Alex).
- Fly the first deliberate autonomous Houston mission and restore the Handbook flight mode map.
- Make the docking station go or no go call from the dock V0 RTK trough landing test running under Javelina Propeller Laboratory.
Phase 3 — Product Definition and Operations Scale (November)
With a validated aircraft and working attachments, the roadmap closes on product direction, commercial readiness, and growing the operator base.
- Write the product refinement scope and assign a dedicated owner.
- Publish dev-kit pricing and an updated bill of materials cost baseline.
- Run one external demonstration of a complete workflow, the dispenser and multispectral camera against the agricultural surveying use case from the marketing discovery, for one outside party (commercial readiness line).
- Stand up a public reliability metrics page on the flight tracking platform: validated hours, flights without intervention, demonstrated endurance (commercial readiness line).
- Complete the Platform Engineering Report, folding in the final build images and weight breakdown owed from the original engineering report (QGB-01, $500 reserved).
- Execute the sales page updates recommended by the marketing discovery deliverable.
- Expand the flight test campaign, onboard the second operator, and decide the California dev-kit disposition.
- Begin docking station design work if Phase 2 gated it through.
Commitment Grant Back Pay — July and August
July and August are paid at the rates in force when the work was performed. The team delivered the project’s two strongest months while these grants went unpaid: first flights through an endurance record in July, and the meetup attachments plus the opening of the obstacle avoidance flight campaign in August.
| Contributor | Monthly (USDC) | July + August (USDC) |
|---|---|---|
| Erick | $3,000 | $6,000 |
| Julius | $1,280 | $2,560 |
| Zeynep | $1,280 | $2,560 |
| Alperen | $1,280 | $2,560 |
| KBM | $960 | $1,920 |
| Alex | $960 | $1,920 |
| Total | $8,760 | $17,520 |
Project Lead Retainer — September to November
| Contributor | Monthly (USDC) | Phases 1 to 3 (USDC) |
|---|---|---|
| Erick (20 hrs/week) | $6,000 | $18,000 |
Scope: flight operations, task board administration and pricing, documentation, treasury execution, and monthly reporting. This is the only retainer from September on. All other contributor compensation flows through the task board (USDC, paid on acceptance) and retroactive grants ($ARROW, monthly).
Retroactive Grants — 30,000 $ARROW From Held Reserves (No New Ask)
Retroactive grants reward valuable contributions not covered by a retainer or task. The June distribution was deliberately skipped and held, and prior months distributed under their allocations, leaving 30,850 $ARROW of retro reserves on the project multisig. The July distribution (6,000 $ARROW of the 15,000 allocation, with 9,000 held, as detailed in the July progress report) executed on chain August 31, leaving 24,850, and the August distribution (6,750 $ARROW: Thomas 1,500, Alperen 1,500, Erick 1,500, Zeynep 750, Gavin 500, Ben 500, KBM 500, with 8,250 held, as detailed in the August progress report) follows from the same reserves, leaving 18,100. No new treasury transfer is requested for this line. September and October retroactive grants will be requested at the roadmap checkpoint, and November at phase close, if the phase record supports them. Under the restructure, monthly retro also becomes the compensation channel for unpriced initiative beyond the task board.
Flight Test Campaign — 10,000 $ARROW (Carried)
The campaign pool approved in April remains held on the multisig with eleven validated flights logged on the flight tracking platform and the twelve August campaign flights queued for upload. Payment mechanics will be finalized during Phase 1 before any payment draws from the pool. The leading candidate is a simple per flight rate paid retroactively against validated logs, sized so the majority of the pool remains for future operators as the dev-kit fleet grows. No new treasury transfer is requested for this line.
Roadmap Checkpoint
The October progress report doubles as the roadmap checkpoint: phase exit criteria reviewed against the record, the September and October retroactive grant request, any task pool replenishment against delivered work, the wind limit study renewal decision, and any Phase 3 rescoping. If the roadmap changes materially, the changes go to the forum before Phase 3 spending continues. Monthly progress reports continue through all three phases, and the next funding request publishes before this one’s final phase closes, ending the late funding pattern this proposal corrects.
Grants & Bounties — Restated as the Task Board
The March 2026 governance proposal allocated $26,240 USDC to the Grants & Bounties pool. $8,180.11 has been paid to date (including $1,480.82 of documented August expense reimbursements from QGB-FLEX), and the July on chain reconciliation folded a $726.94 surplus into QGB-FLEX. This proposal consolidates $6,480.21 of idle allocations into QGB-FLEX (detailed in the Compensation Restructure section), keeping the full $18,786.83 on the multisig in the work program. Two bounties were dropped in July and converted to in house design work: the V1 actuated payload latch (QGB-05a, claim stalled), whose $500 returned to its parent bucket QGB-05, and the multispectral camera payload (unclaimed), whose $500 returned to QGB-FLEX. Both builds ran through the August meetup and produced working V1 prototypes.
| ID | Name | Reward | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| QGB-01 | Documentation Wrap Up | $10,000 |  In Progress. Priced items continue as tasks ($2,550 open). Unassigned $3,480.21 consolidated into QGB-FLEX. First Flight Checklist drafted and approved, Handbook recalibration section drafted, first time setup payout under review, Attachment Developer Guide scoped and going to bounty ($750). |
| QGB-02 | Obstacle Avoidance System | $4,000 | In Progress. Ground commissioning complete, flight campaign opened August 25. The first avoidance enabled flight is the Phase 1 exit gate, with payout terms for the in house commissioning work settled before closeout. |
| QGB-03 | Endurance Metrics Study | $600 | In Progress. Completes in Phase 2 against the accumulated campaign log corpus. |
| QGB-04 | Wind Limit Study | $3,000 |  Consolidated into QGB-FLEX. The study returns at the checkpoint once the wind range dataset exists. |
| QGB-05 | Attachment Development | $3,000 | In Progress. Latch V1 and multispectral camera V1 built and tested at the August meetup, dispenser rewired past the faulty off the shelf PCB and bench tested, field test pending. Funds the V2 iterations in Phase 2, with QGB-FLEX unassigned as overflow. |
| QGB-05a | V1 Actuated Payload Latch | $500 |  Dropped in July. Claim stalled, moved to in house design and built at the meetup, funds returned to its parent bucket QGB-05. |
| QGB-06 | Transport Case | $1,000 |  Paid April 20. |
| QGB-FLEX | Open Bounty Bucket | $11,847.15 | $4,640 base + $726.94 surplus fold + $6,480.21 consolidation top up. $3,210.32 paid (including the $1,480.82 August expense reimbursements), $2,875 earmarked (below), $5,761.83 unassigned (the open task pool). |
| QGB-FLEX | Operator Onboarding Fund | $1,500 |  Earmarked. Stood up in Phase 1 with the flight campaign mechanics, deployed against itemized onboarding costs. |
| QGB-FLEX | Commercial Readiness | $1,000 | Open. Reliability metrics page and sales page execution, Phase 3. |
| QGB-FLEX | Marketing & Sales Page Discovery | $375 | In review before filing. |
| QGB-FLEX | Multispectral Camera Payload | $500 | Dropped in July. Unclaimed, moved to in house design and built at the meetup, funds returned to QGB-FLEX. |
| QGB-FLEX | QuiverHub V1 Completion & Release | $1,080 USDC + 600 $ARROW | Paid. All M1–M3 milestones closed (Alex). |
QGB-01 Breakdown
| Item | Allocation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Dev-Kit Information Notes | $775 USDC | Paid |
| Liquidity Pool Seeding | $994.79 USDC | Paid |
| Manufacturing Guide — Alperen | $1,000 USDC | Paid June 26 |
| Manufacturing Guide — Erick | $700 USDC | Paid June 26 |
| Manufacturing Guide — First time Setup (rolled forward) | $300 USDC | Payout under review against the Initial Configuration Guide |
| Engineering Report — Erick | $500 USDC | Paid June 26 |
| Platform Engineering Report (reserved) | $500 USDC | Open. Phase 3 deliverable. |
| Pilot’s Handbook | $1,000 USDC | Merged. Payment pending field driven updates, now accumulating from the flight campaign. |
| Developer SDK | Unpriced | Quick start merged. Pending field updates and M4 & M5 (Alex). |
| Maintenance Guide | Unpriced | Merged. Payment pending field driven updates. |
| Attachment Developer Guide | $750 USDC | Scoped. Going to bounty posting, Thomas reviewing. |
| Unassigned Funds | $3,480.21 USDC | Consolidated into QGB-FLEX by this proposal |
Feedback and next steps. This proposal is open for discussion here. Questions and challenges to any line are welcome, every figure reconciles against the project ledger and the multisig on chain, and I am happy to walk through any of it in the thread. At Snapshot, approval will allow the transfer of 35,520 USDC from the Arrow treasury to the Project Quiver multisig to fund operations through November 2026, and will authorize consolidating $6,480.21 of idle bounty allocations into QGB-FLEX with the earmarks above. No new $ARROW is requested, and the retroactive grants and flight test campaign draw from reserves already held on the multisig.