Session 1

Session 2

Drone Flying

Take to the Skies

This course introduces students to aerial robotics, otherwise known as drones. Drones are used in so many areas, from photography of events to medical supply delivery in remote regions. Their future use is exciting too, with companies such as Amazon and Door Dash promising delivery via drone as coming soon.

Understanding how these systems work and how to use these systems are the key goals of the course. Students will gain hands-on experience flying and programming drones while exploring their vast application space.

Curriculum

In this hands-on course, students will actively use a drone and work together to solve a problem. Students will learn how to fly a drone safely and well through indoor obstacle courses and racing. After manually flying the drone, students will learn how to program a drone to control its movement and gather information (with no previous programming experience required). This turns the system into an autonomous robot for a wide range of applications.

Students will then explore how to use the data gathered by a drone and explain different application areas of use by drones. Teams will compete in a final challenge to show off their flying and project skills. Students will learn about Federal Aviation Authority regulations and take the Recreation Drone Safety Test.

Dean Niraj Chaudhary and student working with a drone
Planned Topics

For drones, the course will cover the basic structure of a drone, how they fly and how we control their flight, how to gather data with a drone and the advantages and disadvantages of drones.

For drone applications, the course will cover a range of application spaces including aerial photography and mapping, aerial delivery and similar uses. The course will discuss an overview of how the drone works within these spaces, the pros and cons of using drones within these spaces and the challenges of using drones in these application spaces.

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Veasna Ling
Faculty Lead
Veasna Ling

Innovation Commons Lead at University Libraries

M.S. in Computer Science, University of The Pacific, 2023
B.S. in Computer Science, University of the Pacific, 2022
A.A. in Graphic Arts, San Joaquin Delta College, 2018
A.A. in Fine Arts, San Joaquin Delta College, 2018
A.A in Photography, San Joaquin Delta College, 2018

Veasna’s research specialty centers on STEM education within the Summer High School Institute, with a focus on experiential learning in drone technology, Internet of Things systems, and 3D modeling. Their work emphasizes learning how to design and prototype, program remote-control devices, and co-teach drone-based curricula (notably in 2024) to cultivate students’ technical proficiency and real-world problem-solving skills.

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