Eighth graders in Nicolas Fletcher’s STEM 3 classes are helping to make SISD campuses more secure through a new project using drone technology.
The students are providing SISD Safety and Security Coordinator Justin Mathew and Sunnyvale PD with helpful interior drone footage of district campuses to help keep all Raiders safe.
“When I saw the students fly the drones for the first time at the Middle School, I immediately thought about how I could use it,” Mathew said. “This type of project is what experts are doing and what the future of security will look like. The ways we can use the footage for training can be endless!”
The premise behind the project was to provide students with a unique opportunity to obtain a Drone Pilot 107 License through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Unlike other STEM projects that are part of the TEKS or Project Lead the Way curriculum, the SMS Drone Team is an independent curriculum designed by Fletcher. The program is exclusively for eighth-grade students in the STEM 3 program, and all students who wish to participate can join.
“My ultimate goal is for the students to obtain skills in the following areas: drone piloting, video editing and rendering, and professional communication,” Fletcher said. “Through the assignments and tasks completed by the SMS Drone Team.”
The students work with Mathew during Flextime to collect footage of the Middle School and High School for Sunnyvale PD. Additionally, they take the project home to render and edit the footage and finalize the videos. The equipment the team uses includes various DJI drones, such as Avata, FPV, and Mini Pro 3, which were funded by a grant from the Sunnyvale Education Foundation.
“My favorite part of working on this project was working with my classmates and producing something that we could all be proud of,” eighth grader Caitlyn Chandy said.
The SMS Drone Team is just one of the many projects that students in the STEM 3 program can choose to participate in. Other projects include Minecraft coding, VEX robot battles, and app development. Fletcher encourages students to take ownership of their projects and believes that student autonomy helps students develop their problem-solving skills and their passion for the project.