Lesson Guides & Challenges

• Basics of flight
• Intro to drones, history and parts
• Functions of drones (mechanics, controls, and safety)
• Race Challenge (piloted with controllers)
• Community speakers (drone users)
• Coding programs (app intros blocks)
• Integrate coding and drones (simple challenges)
• Check out video reviews of other drones
• Provide Photo/video resources for use by the campus
• Create reviews for others to learn from
• Increase difficulty of coding challenges
• End of year competition (both piloted races and coding challenges)

Missions

These are "missions" or objectives that I challenge the students with. I mostly follow this order, but will repeat a mission if warranted. Controller flight missions, photo missions, and guest speakers can be moved around in the order. Also note that any of these missions can be modified for ground robots as well!

1. Relay Race: This is the first thing I have the students do when they get to fly the drones. I put them in teams of 4 or 5. Their mission is to take off from pad A, fly straight forward and land on pad B about 20 ft away. Take off again, and fly back to pad A. That pilot will hand the controller to the teammate behind him/her, and go to the end of the line. I let them do this for a few times through the line so each student gets to pilot the drone more than once. Then, with a fresh battery in each drone we have a relay race with the same "mission", but the difference this time is that when the last person on the team lands back on their pad A, they are done. The first team done wins!
2. Code Introduction: Students will use a block coding app such as Tynker, or Tello EDU to play though game stages that introduce them to coding blocks and their functions.
3. Code Race Flight: Pads A and B are set about 20 ft apart. Teams of 2 or 3 are to code their drone to take off from pad A, fly straight, and land on pad B. When all teams have their code ready, have a race by all teams pressing "Start" when you say go. The first team to land on or closest to pad B wins!
4. Code Flight with a Turn: Pads A and B are set 20-30 ft apart, but not aligned directly in line with the drone. Students must code their team's drone to take off from pad A, include a turn or roll (left or right drift) to land on pad B.
5. Recon Mission 1: Pads A and B are set up like in "Code race flight" mission. The difference is that instead of landing on pad B, the drone must pass over it, and then return to pad A to land.
6. Recon Mission 2: Drones must be coded to fly over 2 pads (or points of interest) before returning to launch pad A.
7. Errand of Mercy Delivery: Using brick adapters, add a small Lego med pack to the top of each drone. Designate a "disaster area" for drones to "deliver" the med packs to survivors (I use the center circle of the basketball court as the disaster area). Students must code their team's drone to take off from pad A and land in the "disaster area" near a survivor (doll or action figure) to "deliver" the med pack.
8. Errand of Mercy Rescue: Using the same "disaster area", teams must code the drone to take off from pad A, land near a survivor, then take off again and return to their launch pad A. This simulates rescuing the survivors and bringing them to safety. As a variation to this mission, Lego figures can be used as the survivors to actually carry them back (this will increase the difficulty by adding weight for the return trip!)
9. Search and Rescue: Teams must use the brick adapter to attach a small craft mirror in front of the camera to give a downward view. Using the FPV camera view only on their device (and sitting with their backs to the mission area) Teams must fly over a designated area to find a small object placed randomly. The official Tello app will need to be used with this mission to pilot the drone. It would be best for only 1 team to fly at a time. The other teams will be spotters to warn the pilot if he/she is about to crash. 3ft is the recommended altitude. This can be done as a timed challenge to see which team/student can find and photograph the object first.
10. Crop Inspection: A farm field with rows of crops can be drawn out on a shower curtain. The drone must be coded to take off, fly over every row, then return to its launch pad.

More details coming soon!