While the testing and head-to-head competition of new drone and counter drone platforms took center stage during Defense Contract Management Agency’s “Game of Drones” event, the aggregate data obtained will provide key insights into this emerging domain of warfare.

Two Army Reserve soldiers who attended the event at Edwards Air Force Base July 14-16 plan to transform data collected during the event into mission success.

Army 2nd Lt. Chad Puterbaugh, innovation officer, and Army Sgt. Sairam Lingineni, innovation noncommissioned officer, both Army Reserve 75th Innovation Command members, brought a unique capability to the tech-driven event.

Puterbaugh, a data scientist and data architect in his civilian career, and Lingineni, a software and cybersecurity engineer in his civilian career, were invited to work alongside the agency’s Blue List team to discern insights from the data collected from the event’s drones and ground-based sensors.

“The Army Reserve Innovation Command is building out a dedicated mission set,” Puterbaugh said. “We’re exploring capacity in how autonomous drones can support the Army and the Army Reserve. That’s one of their directives to determine ways to integrate and innovate those emerging warfighter capabilities.”

Puterbaugh said he read the Drone Dominance memo and came to understand the implications of how it would change traditional requirements-based development and acquisitions.

“Getting embedded here, I got a sense of just how fast and large scale we are looking to move in this innovative direction,” Puterbaugh said. “The engine is being built as it’s moving down the tracks.”

According to Puterbaugh, a major benefit of integrating with the Blue List team and attending the “Game of Drones” event was engaging with attendees.

“We need to lean into these contacts with those who are building something novel and are unafraid to try new things to achieve those objectives,” he said. “For example, coming into this event, I had zero intuition that I would meet a subject matter expert from Army Materiel Command that’s involved with the manufacture of brushless motors for drone platforms. It’s been fascinating, and it proves how quickly we’re learning to build our own things.”

Analysis of data collected from the “Game of Drones” will directly support and enhance the Blue List.

“As innovators, we’re not just thinking about immediate requirements, but future needs as well,” Puterbaugh said. “We’re understanding the requirements for these platforms and components as they’re being built. Insights from data analysis will allow us to get closer to being able to integrate more systems and platforms.”

Lingineni said they initially expected to be supporting software applications but were tapped to join the Blue List team during the drone event.

“Upon arrival, we quickly understood the full mission set and what our focus would be moving forward,” Lingineni said. “We also have a better understanding of the strategic thrust behind these actions. We learned a lot about the different parts of the mission.”

Lingineni said it became clear that the Blue List is not just about validating drone platforms and components.

“It’s also about supply chain security and trying to optimize the use of the data we collect during these tests and competitions,” he said.

The “Game of Drones” event was founded and is sponsored by the DCMA Blue List team and is run in cooperation with other agencies including the Air Force Experimental Test Force and the Griffiss Institute, a not-for-profit organization which serves as an intermediary to federal service laboratories and American industry.

The Blue List is an aggregated list of compliant unmanned systems and components approved for purchase and operation by the War Department. The Blue List was transferred to DCMA from the Defense Innovation Unit in 2025 and takes a holistic approach to continuously and rapidly vet commercial UAS technology for DOW.