Steps and Best Practices to build a Successful Student Drone Club-Part Two

What your school needs to set up a Drone Club – PART TWO

Drone Clubs and Drone Racing teams offer a platform for students to discover the excitement of drones. They are a great way to spark interest in STEM and to create stellar engineers, programmers and pilots. Drones clubs, like their predecessor robotics (ground and water) clubs, are growing in a big way at the elementary through university levels.

Part one is located here. Here are more tips:

4. Recruit students with a flyer stating the club’s purpose and meeting times:

 State in the flyer, “No experience needed just technical interest and desire to work with others. “At OnPoynt we have seen students who like drones, love to build things, flying for them is secondary.

We have also found students who just want to fly and who always want to be the pilot. Some may be interested in coding, photography flying and video editing. And some just want to be part of a team doing something new and fun.

Drone Racing is a little different in that you are looking for student who may already have experience or interest and are generally competitive. Drone racing can be demanding and challenging but very rewarding.  The current champ for the FAI league is an 11-year-old girl from Thailand.

5. Use social media, school website and community media to share the news:

A school newspaper, newsletter, social media or school announcements to spread the word you’re establishing a drone club.  These can help you find drone fliers in your school and can generate interest and community support. 

Here are a few articles on schools starting drone clubs:

Bloomington High School North drone program

Royse City High School-drone racing club

Make safety a priority but have enough drones to keep students interested:

 At OnPoynt, we recommend four students per drone for a STEM or robotics club. Students can fly in pairs (pilot and spotter). The spotter looks out for a low battery signal from the drone, any impediment  in the flying area  and tells the pilot  when they need to correct. 

When students are first learning to fly, an experienced pilot needs to stand with the new pilot and take control of the remote control if needed. Crashing is part of the experience but equipment damage needs to be avoided.

For a drone racing purpose, a club needs a minimum of four drones to get started.

To see more about equipment needed review this OnPoynt Drone Ranger Blog. Call OnPoynt if you have questions, we are happy to answer. Good luck and email us or tweet us about your drone club. We would love to feature your club in social media.

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