February 1, 2015:
This has been an incredibly frustrating turn of events.
My dad had ordered a new flight controller board to replace the one we didn't know how to fix. This turned out to be for the better, as this board had tons of documentation, and supported OpenPilot software, which is nice and user-friendly. Now I might be able to go somewhere!
The work started on January 31. I reconnected everything, double-checked the instructions ,and spent the better part of an afternoon reading up on how to set up OpenPilot software on my new flight controller. Going through the steps to load the software to the board and confirm that everything would be in working condition was simple enough, until I got to configuring the controls.
Evidently there's something wrong with the radio transmitter and receiver I got, because one channel doesn't work, and that throws off a bunch of the other channels. I spent an hour trying to get the controls to transmit correctly, but I gave up, and decided: No big deal, I just have to remember what throttle and yaw are actually controlled by.
And so everything should work now, right? Well actually... the accelerometer and gyroscope are having trouble, so I have to redo the process that clears the software and flashes a copy that's up to date onto the board.
NOW, everything should work, right? Well, I have to check all my wire connections, because I need to do the whole setup wizard all over again, because clearing the board to default removed the settings.
Well, surely now it'll work right? Actually, now one of the motors isn't responding! So now there's a problem there! Let's shuffle the wires around to pinpoint the problem... and it's the electronic speed controller. Something must have messed with the connections to the signal wire, because now when the board tries to communicate with the speed controller, all I get is a constant vibrating motor.
You know what? I'm giving up for now and returning to this problem when I feel better about all this.
