We knew our hardware had to be robust and easy to adjust for testing purposes. We made our frame such that the components could easily be moved along each arm to adjust center of mass and moment of inertia. We also made one of the arms pivotable for even more adjustment. The whole thing was laser-cut out of MDF, and proved to be surprisingly robust.
We used a 1400 KV brushless motor, 40 amp ESC, and an arduino as our flight computer. We also used an IMU/Gyro combo for our sensing and attitude readings, as well as a bluetooth chip for wireless control. We were able to control our drone with a smartphone app via bluetooth.