The Falcon Center at Fairmont State University lives up to its name today.
More than 20 teams of middle school and high school students across West Virginia are taking flight under the roof of the campus student center in a special aerial drone event. Another team from Ohio will also compete.
Airborne courses with archways, hoops and a dexterity-testing, Ping-Pong ball challenge are all part of the flight plan, for the budding pilots and their support teams.
“We’ll have pilots and spotters,” he said. “Everyone on the team has a key role.”
The actual drones, meanwhile, are smaller-scale models designed with the safety of the competitors in mind, he said.
Fairmont State is co-hosting the event with NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) facility, which is right down the road from the university at nearby I-79 Technology Park.
The space agency’s Langley Research Center is also partnering, along with the For The Win Robotics group and Robotics Education and Competition Foundation.
“Right down the road,” is an apt descriptor for the ultimate flight plan of the day, the event’s principal organizer Todd Ensign said.
Ensign is a Fairmont State faculty member and program manager at IV&V’s Education Resource Center.
Besides the thrill of fun of the drone competition, the event, which took flight the evening before, is also designed to showcase the state’s burgeoning aerodynamics industry and course offerings in the field at Fairmont State and across the region.
“You don’t have to leave the area for training if you want to work in this industry,” Ensign said. “It’s all right here.”
Ensign calls it a clear runway for the pursuit of a career in STEM — science, technology engineering and math jobs are in demand right now, he said.
Besides the professional reward, he said, such jobs also carry a livable wage as part of the payload.
Fairmont State President Mirta M. Martin agreed, and said today’s drone-doings are a good start.
“The nation, and our region, faces the need for more and more highly skilled STEM professionals,” she said.
NASA workshops and displays are also part of the proceedings, Ensign said.
“This is one of the largest drone and aerospace expos in the region right now,” the organizer added.
And one of the most inclusive, also.
A team of deaf students is part of today’s field, Ensign said, along with another compromised exclusively of students who are in foster care.
“It’s exciting. A lot of kids are going to be introduced to STEM today.”
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