Team Drone New Mexico

Hosted by New Mexico Tech

Program Description

We seek to promote New Mexico's mission in increasing enrollment in STEM fields and outreach activities through starting a state and eventually nationwide “K-12 Drone-program at NMT”. New Mexico Tech in partnership with SystemGo New Mexico wants to improve education in America by inspiring students, teachers, and administrators within the present educational system. New Mexico Tech drone program would motivate and equip high school students to develop 21^st-century skills and pursue careers in STEM disciplines. New Mexico Tech drone program (Team Drone New Mexico) will be a high-level STEM Engineering curriculum in which high school students in their junior and senior years will design and build different types of fixed-wing or multirotors Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) for well-defined missions.

This program builds a context for collaboration around our shared goals, strengthen ongoing partnerships, and create pathways from high school to New Mexico STEM careers.

Summer STEEM Mini-Courses

STEEM (Summer 2019)-Introduction to Unmanned Aerial System class.

Master of Science for Teachers (MST) Program

MST (Summer 2019)-Introduction to Unmanned Aerial System class.

Outreach Activities of Team Drone New Mexico

NMT Drone Program Outreach activities (Fall 2019)

Team Drone New Mexico Partners

New Mexico Tech

Team Drone New Mexico

SystemGo New Mexico

Mission Statement

The program utilizes an array of activities to build the drone education capacity of New Mexico. The activities are coordinated by an advisory panel of Industry professionals and NMT/k-12 Educators, which are linked together to recruit, educate, and prepare future generations of students. The proposed project initially targets junior and senior high school students from the state of New Mexico to increase their exposure to in-depth STEM activities and encourage them to pursue a career in a STEM fields. The program will essentially involve multiple disciplines of New Mexico Tech to build the institutional education capacity of drones.

The high school-level drone program at NMT provides these opportunities by connecting state students to challenges that encourage innovation, critical thinking, and problem-solving. The program activities include:

In-depth, multi-layered learning experiences for high school students within rural, tribal, and other undeserved communities in New Mexico(NM);
Mentorship between NMT students and state high schools’ students and their teachers;
Professional development workshops and classes for high school teachers and out-of-school time informal educators within undeserved rural and tribal communities through NMT Master of Science for Teachers (MST) program;
Drone competition and challenge for students.

Online drone education/competition

New Mexico Tech has a drone cage (13ft× 13ft×13ft) that is portable and has the ability to host distance drone competitions. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing rules, this has the ability to continue to engage students in STEM activities, even while they are at home.

NMT currently is developing an online user interface software where the K-12 students will be able to get connected remotely to the cage and fly a drone. The drone cage is equipped with different types of vive-trackers, tracking and visual cameras, wind generators, obstacles, drones, remote controllers, work-stations, etc.

For flight training purposes, a virtual reality setup and flight simulators have been integrated into the envisioned remote piloting facility at NMT.