A group of Parkersburg High School (PHS), West Virginia students spent last Wednesday morning on the school’s football field, but instead of passing a ball around, were taking turns flying a drone, reports wtap.com.
The pupils are part of Steve Reiner’s drone class, an element of a larger robotics program at PHS. This “drone class” is exactly what it says on the tin, teaching students how to fly what Reiner calls “professional-quality” unmanned craft.
In this class, students study the rules and regulations around flying drones, as well as how to take care of them. One, Kyle Edman, says they can even get certified to fly a drone commercially. “If the media wanted footage of something, like they wanted footage of the football field, well if you don’t have a droning license, you can’t legally take footage for them and get paid.”
Edman wants to gain his drone license and work directly within the industry either through his own business or as an employee at another company. In order to be a part of the drone class, he had to go through a prerequisite robotics course, and has since gone on to take more robotics as well as several engineering courses. Picking up skills, he says, has better prepared him to enter the workforce. Edman continues, “You learn what you need to know to go out of high school into a pretty good job, a good paying job too.”
And the students in Reiner’s class are gaining job experience, too. In cooperation with Ohio business, Brown Owl Imaging, Reiner has set up a system that makes class feel a lot more like work. They even have to fill out timecards.
Reiner explains, “Along with the drones, we are doing a simulated workplace and we have a gentleman, Tony Brown, of Brown Owl Imaging, working with us to simulate a working atmosphere for our students.”
Needless to say, the students are “loving the class.”
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(News Source: https://www.wtap.com)