Drones and Education – Buzzing about STEM

By Austin Lee — Posted on: Apr 15, 2015

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superma- no wait it’s a drone, and it might be coming to your local high school!
Drones, more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are essentially flying robots that can be either be controlled remotely or fly on their own using computer software. Drones have made headlines in recent years on several topics, from dropping bombs to dropping packages, from taking photos of city skylines to your backyard. Despite their controversial status, people are exploring the huge potential of drones in several different applications, including education.

Drones have increasingly been appearing in schools as a way to get K-12 students excited STEM fields, and in particular, to incorporate more engineering education into the K-12 science curriculum. Educational programs like Drones for Schools believe that the best way to get students interested in sciences is to actually engage them in real-life applications. By learning how to pilot a drone, students learn about aerodynamics and aeronautics. By learning how to build drone parts, students learn about drafting and design. By learning how to assemble and program drones, students learn about electrical engineering and computer programming. Drone technology cuts across multiple disciplines, and when students have the opportunity to engage and explore with this kind of technology, they gain valuable training and experience to solve more complex challenges in the future and even find employment in high-tech industries. Employers are reaching out as well, offering immersive simulation training programs to local high-schools in the hope that students today will eventually become professional drone pilots and engineers.

With all the buzz about drones and enhancing STEM education, who knows where the technology will take us in the future?

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