ICT

HAVING FUN WITH DRONES

Chris Moustakas is a former student of McKinnon, currently studying at RMIT. Chris contacted the school, offering to come in to run a workshop on mini-drones, which are controlled by writing code in Python. Our Year 9 Coding class had been learning Python, so it was a perfect opportunity to combine the skills they had been learning with a modern application of the skills, in writing their own code to control the take off, flight and landing of the drones.

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On Tuesday 16 October, Chris and his team arrived in the school to set up their workshop.....

Mr Munro

ICT Teacher

“On Tuesday 16 October, Mr Munro’s coding class were given a first-hand experience in programming their own drones. With help from students from RMIT, we were challenged to use trigonometry to figure out the angles and distance that the drone needed to fly, and then used a programming tool called Python to enter our commands for the drone to follow. We watched in awe as the work we put in enabled a drone to fly. We were even given the opportunity for the drone to do a flip, which we clearly agreed to. We were then allowed to build our own drone using Lego blocks. We were given instructions on how to build it, and away we went. There were 4 drone designs to choose from, ranging from the least amount of time needed to make to the most. Overall it was a really rewarding experience. It was amazing watching something we had coded come to life.”

Sanjana Kansal

Year 9 Student

“On Tuesday 16 October, six RMIT students came to assist us in dealing with drones as a part of an experiment of theirs. The experience was really enjoyable as we got to do various activities like building a drone (of our choice) out of Lego as well as programming drones and watching the end result, which was quite satisfying. The programming was a little challenging and although we were a little rushed for time (and had some drones crash along the way) it was fun working in teams to complete tasks and watch the drones take their course.”

Marisha Dinesh

Year 9 Student

“The RMIT drone experience was lots of fun, we got to fly drones that were made out of Lego as well as figuring out problems such as working out the angle to get around a mountain. When we figured out the angle we had to write a program to make the drones fly and turn the angles that we figured out. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the experience!”

Miles Brown

Year 9 Student

“On Tuesday 16 October, Mr Munro’s coding class had an incursion all about drones. Students from RMIT came to our class to teach us about drones and assist us throughout the class. This incursion ranged from programming drones to building and flying drones we made ourselves out of Lego. During the programming section of the course, groups were given situations that programming the drones would fulfill. By the end of the programming session, we were able to make the drones change direction, fly to certain areas and even do flips!

We were given instructions on how to build one of four drones from Lego, ranging from least to most time consuming. Once we had completed our Lego drones, we were able to connect them to batteries and fly them via remote control.

This was an extremely fun and exciting experience which enhanced the whole class’s knowledge on coding and, of course, drones!

Milly Sullivan

Year 9 Student