Hands-on Drone-Building Workshops

Organiser

Ricardo Sanfelice (University of California, Santa Cruz, US)

Sponsoring IFAC body

IFAC Technical Committee 1.3 - Discrete Events and Hybrid Systems

Link

https://tc.ifac-control.org/1/3

Overview

Our proposed activity aims to stimulate diverse, youth-based community engagement with the control systems community by providing the opportunity for middle- and high school-aged children to receive and learn how to build, program, and control a small aerial drone. We have already secured 100 drone kits from STMicroelectronics and would like to utilize IFAC funds to cover the costs of distributing them for free to children in diverse communities of lower socioeconomic status throughout the United States, as well as covering the costs associated with the planning and delivery of an online-based curriculum series which will introduce them to the science of control systems. Our target audience are diverse youth in underserved communities who would greatly benefit from engaging in lower-level educational curriculum about control systems, drones and robotics. Such children may have an unmet interest in these topics, but live in communities where educational resources and activities are underdeveloped. By providing this opportunity, we would be able to engage the min not only the fun activity of working with and flying drones, but also in cultivating their interest in the science of control systems that could lead them to become the next generation of control systems scientists.