Two bored engineering interns, Danny Ellis and Tom Brady, jokingly discussed starting their own company in 2007. In 2012, they founded SkySpecs along with seven other University of Michigan graduates. SkySpecs builds unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to safely inspect infrastructure like bridges and wind turbines. Their UAVs can perform more frequent, lower-cost inspections to monitor structural health and catch failures earlier. The company originated from Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles, a student club founded by Ellis to build flying robots for competitions. Through competitions and investors, SkySpecs has grown from a student project to a company developing UAV technology in their Ann Arbor warehouse.