Roles were reversed the week of July 11th as Kashmir World Foundation (KwF) interns, along with Executive Director Aliyah Pandolfi, took on the role of teachers to lead the Teachers Take Flight Build a Drone workshop exclusively for teachers and professors. Four educators from colleges and high schools around the United States gathered at the Foxcroft School for a special workshop, through which participants learned to design, build, customize, and operate drones, and heard from an array of knowledgeable guest speakers.
On the first day, the educators heard about KwF’s drone-related work and research, learned about the different types of drones, the many parts, and their uses. Guest speaker Rob Thompson from the Falcon Foundation gave a presentation on relevant UAS, FAA rules and regulations, from which both participants and KwF staff learned a lot. The second guest speaker, University of Maryland Project Engineer Jacob Moschler, spoke about his work with drones in Belize. By the end of the day, everyone had assembled the frames of the drones.
The building continued over the next couple days, with help from KwF interns Grey Gollas, Mike Kronmiller, and Ben Goff who all gave very informative presentations to direct the build process. Several other guest speakers visited throughout the week, including Foxcroft Head of School Catherine McGehee and Foxcroft STEM Department Chair Maria Evans, who have been instrumental to the success of KwF’s Build a Drone workshops over the past several years. Smith College professor and Teachers Take Flight workshop participant Jon Caris also gave a wonderful presentation. On the final day everyone had the opportunity fly his or her drone, all with great success. We even had a visit from local news station NBC4!
The goal of the workshop was to equip participants with technical know-how in a creative environment, giving them valuable information and experience to take back to their students. The Teachers Take Flight workshop has enabled participating teachers and professors to engage students in a new way and introduce exciting technologies and approaches to learning.
Congratulations to the participants on a fantastic week!
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