What to present to kids at school

[cranialrectosis]

I have volunteered at a local high school to demonstrate how to safely build, fly and maintain multirotors.

I am the sponsor and will be bringing in 2 Syma X1s a new FT kit as well as 3 of my disassembled FT kits to construct and fly. The school will be purchasing a transmitter and I will bring in my own.

We have the interest, the funds and the time. Now what do I plan to say?

Eventually, we will get to flight line rules. AMA makes safety rules for flight easy:
https://www.modelaircraft.org/files/105.PDF

Lipo safety is also simple thanks to AMA and Hobbyco:
http://www.hobbico.com/ama-lipo-warning.html

I think I will start with basic assembly.
1. Where to get technical help online. AMA, FT, RCGroups, Mesa(?).
2. What is a multirotor and what types are there and what do they do.
3. How to choose an airframe, weight vs thrust, and inertia vs your airframe in a crash.
4. What are its components and what do they do and how do they work together.
5. How to safely assemble an airframe and how the shape impacts performance and utility.
6. How to design and build the power harness.
7. How to connect the circuitry.
8. How to bind a FrSky receiver and set up a FrSky transmitter to fly a copter.
9. How to set up a Naze32 acro.
10. How to safely test electronics including failsafes, motor direction, synch ESCs, and test the Naze response to inertia.
11. Pre-flight inspection.
12. Maiden flight.
13. Simple tuning and introduction to control loops.
14. Repairs and maintenance.

Lastly I plan to talk about ethics and responsibility when putting a copter in the air and when putting a camera in the air.

I have reached out to MESArc but I don't think they have any planned curriculum that is available....yet.


I am asking for input from the community. What have I missed? What resources exist that I have not listed?

 

[Stradawhovious]

I sure hope you have a big timeslot. That's a lot of information to cover...

 

[cranialrectosis]

I expect to take some time over the course of days or weeks.

It takes me about 6 hours to build a copter (minus paint time and shipping time). I expect it will take us 24-30 hours in class.

 

[Kurt0326]

I would recommend you to get ahold of the people of MesaRC, they could give you do much info.

 

[BridgeInspector]

Don't forget about recommending simulator time to learn tx and flight characteristics.

 

[cranialrectosis]

I would recommend you to get ahold of the people of MesaRC, they could give you do much info.

I have reached out to MesaRC. I got some nice news that I cannot yet share but no curriculum.

I did note that Altitude now sells the MesaRC foamies. Gonna have to try one.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Don't forget about recommending simulator time to learn tx and flight characteristics.

Sim will be challenging on the school computers and network. However, I am donating two Syma X1 RTFs. They are hard to break, can't hurt anyone and have dual rates. Best of all they are cheap!

 

[earthsciteach]

Do you have an idea of how many students will be participating? You'll want to give everyone an opportunity to get some hands on stuff or they may get antsy.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Do you have an idea of how many students will be participating? You'll want to give everyone an opportunity to get some hands on stuff or they may get antsy.

I was hoping you would chime in earthsciteach.

At this point, I do not. I suspect between 6 and 10 but I really don't know yet. I also suspect that it we are successful, a second season will increase participation so I am hoping to be able to scale.

I plan to have 4 kits to assemble in class, but with my hangar, I can theoretically add another 3 intermediate builds and still have something to fly at home.

This is one of the aspects that concerns me the most.

If I can't do a one to one ratio (one copter for each student) what do you think an acceptable ratio will be?

 

[prairiedawg_rc]

I was hoping you would chime in earthsciteach.

At this point, I do not. I suspect between 6 and 10 but I really don't know yet. I also suspect that it we are successful, a second season will increase participation so I am hoping to be able to scale.

I plan to have 4 kits to assemble in class, but with my hangar, I can theoretically add another 3 intermediate builds and still have something to fly at home.

This is one of the aspects that concerns me the most.

If I can't do a one to one ratio (one copter for each student) what do you think an acceptable ratio will be?

Here's my two cents from a Teachers kid (who happened to teach Earth Science), go with what you can put together now. Break the kids up into build teams, that way they can learn team building skills in addition to RC. It will also give them a chance to find a flying buddy, someone their own age that they can go to with questions, etc.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Here's my two cents from a Teachers kid (who happened to teach Earth Science), go with what you can put together now. Break the kids up into build teams, that way they can learn team building skills in addition to RC. It will also give them a chance to find a flying buddy, someone their own age that they can go to with questions, etc.

Buddy teams may include faculty at this point.

 

[cranialrectosis]

We have met a few times at the school. We now have 4 Zyma X1s to play with and today we will hold the first safety briefing and start with the basic concepts of RC Multirotor builds and flight in the shop/classroom.

The school district has purchased a few Taranis transmitters and a few D4R-IIs and I am gifting them 4 FT kits (1 new 3 gently used) with power systems. We expect 20-30 folks today. Yes, this grew and quickly.

The district has also asked that I meet with their engineering curriculum advisory panel to discuss how this program fits in with engineering and robotics courses they already have. To be honest, I can see second and third year kids exceeding my knowledge and pushing me as hard as I push them. At any rate, I hope that is how it happens.

There are three high schools in this district and their commitment to engineering, robotics, computer science is AWESOME. These are courses I never had access to as a kid.

I am pretty excited and I hope the kids are too.

 

[makattack]

That's great news! I know that feeling of how those kids will push you to keep up with them! It sure sounds like you'll quickly be getting into autonomous flight software in the near future. You might even have to add a section on opensource, microcontroller programming/software, and then cover applications of autonomous flight (failsafe, mapping/surveying, limits, safe operating standards, etc). Then again, a few of them might already be familiar with that stuff and that would present a good opportunity to have student instructors/teaching assistants!

 

[cranialrectosis]

The school is interested in microcontroller programming, autonomous flight, mapping/surveying. I am giving them a MultiWii Pro with GPS to play with but am still waiting on TAU and the Brain or the Sparky2 to arrive. We have a ways to go before we get there.

We talked a lot about safety today. We also set up a flight line and flew Zyma X1s today.

Failsafe is a topic I plan to cover extensively and I fielded a question about that from a student.

Most of today was spent on safety and basic flight concepts such as put the flight controller in the center of the motors. Make the frame rigid. Inertia in a crash and in the air. Orientation and how to set up a copter so you can regain it when you lose it. The kids seemed to grasp rotor torque and a tricopter pivot mechanism pretty well.

We also talked about where to get help online.

It was a pretty good day and I will be back to start building.