Most of us think of military programs, tactical surveillance and surgical missile strikes when drones come to mind. As the technology behind them becomes easier to find and replicate in the civilian world, however, interest in learning more about them has grown considerably — particularly among high school and college students. In ways that the military likely never envisioned.
Technorati listed mega blog The Huffington Post, a Top 100 Overall listing, recently highlighted a video of the testing of the DomiCopter, Domino Pizza's radical look at a drone delivery service.
NBC 10 in Philadelphia highlighted Manayunk Cleaners, which is testing whether or not it can use drones to deliver dry cleaning back to customers, without scaring the heck out of neighbors.
Drones are cropping up all around us, and schools are already taking notice.
According to blog Government Technology, some universities have already put together majors related to drone theory, use and maintenance. Even some early-adopting high schools have begun implementing integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programs using versions of mini helicopters (or copters) found in hobby stores.
Drones have already began their steady flight into our daily lives, making educational programs related to them even more desirable. As kids see more copters of all sizes around their lives, they are flocking to programs letting them have some hands-on. Educational drones allow an unprecedented ability for a class to monitor, first-hand, ecosystems and geologic features, or even track the large-scale patterns of ships, people, cars and trains.
In other words, drones are an almost perfect tool for extending our students' curiosity outside of the classroom, and into the real world based on projects that matter.
As Government Technology put it, "the sky is the limit". Indeed.
via Technology articles at Technorati http://feeds09.technorati.com/~r/tr-technology/~3/PbgMF5CU-Q0/