Re: Drone-related opportunities
Sunny Gautam
Hi Matthew,
I have been doing just fine, thanks! I apologize that I did not mention this to you but one of the members (Alejandro Freddy Gomez) and I went to Stratton Elementary on November 2 to talk about our experiences of the zero-g trip and at the NASA facilities during our week-long stay in Houston, TX in the past summer. If they are interested for another presentation we would be happy to do another but it would have to be soon as I am graduating this semester and leaving by December 21.
In terms of the CrazyFlie drones, they seem to be a great next step to giving more students more hands-on experience in robotics and STEM, in general. As I stated, I will be graduating this winter break and all other team members have already graduated. However, if there is any other way I can contribute to the EnLiST initiative, I would be happy to do so.
Best regards,
Sunny Gautam
Hi Sunny, hope you have been well!
It's been a while since I got in contact with you, but I wanted to let you know that the Stratton Elementary kids are still talking about your team's amazing drone lessons and demonstrations. The UIUC news service also put out an excellent story on Moon Goons.
I realize it's late into the semester and there's finals afoot, but we would be tremendously grateful you might have time after the break to discuss a possible return trip to Stratton. This would be primarily to teach the students about how your zero-gravity trip went, but if you want to do more drone demonstrations, that would be excellent as well.
Additionally, there's a new initiative gaining steam here at EnLiST that might interest you or your colleagues. We're working on introducing nano-sized quadrotors and crawling robots into STEM classrooms, and we hope this would be a great opportunity for undergraduates to work with this technology as well.
I'm attaching a photo of one of the drones we are working with, called the CrazyFlie (crazflie.com), which is a 20g quadrotor that measures 90mm rotor to rotor. It's operated via a USB radio TX/RX unit, with a Python-coded PC host. We're working on a nano FPV system that will transmit live video from this platform as well.
If either of these opportunities interest you (or your colleagues), it would be great to set up a meeting after Winter break. Thanks for your time, and all the best on your finals.
Best,
Matthew M. Schroyer
Social Network Analyst, Communications Specialist
Drones for Schools Program Developer
Entrepreneurial Leadership in STEM Teaching and Learning
University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign
enlist.illinois.edu
DroneJournalism.org
Cell: 217.553.1973