Drone competition soars at Lee County CTE
LEE COUNTY, MISS. (WCBI) – For this competition, students from across the area put what they have learned to the test.
This is the first drone competition hosted at the Lee County School District CTE.
Jason Pannell is the Unmanned Aerial Systems, or UAS, instructor. He said the contest puts students on teams from other schools, teaching teamwork. There is a piloting contest and an autonomous competition, where students have to write code for the drone to fly through a course.
It wraps up with the Alliances contest.
‘Two teams get 90 seconds to complete as many of the small tasks in the field, it being a timed test basically,” Pannell said.
The course at the Lee County CTE takes two years, and upon graduation, a student is ready to take the FAA test for a commercial license.
‘I have seen some former students now working in crop dusting, tons of people know about videography, insurance claims, search and rescue, see a lot of police and fire taking advantage of it,” Pannell said.
Students said they enjoyed testing their skills at the drone competition and look forward to using those skills after high school.
‘I am interested in any flying vehicle, want to go to college, and make a career. I think it is really cool, so many benefits of drones,” said Miracle, a student at MSMS.
“I am interested in aerospace, how drones fly and how to make that more efficient. I think it is so neat, with only three or four propellers a drone can hover in air, pushing air out around it,” said Spencer, a student at MSMS.
Skills these students are learning can be used in a variety of careers and Lee County CTE is preparing them for a bright future.
