What is the Drone Committee?
Naguar: ‘It is a new committee that falls under the Student Association Board of ITC. It was created by proactive students who had interest in learning about UAV’s (unmanned aerial vehicles) and drones. Because we, as a faculty, use a lot of drones, but students don’t get to directly work with them because the lab drones tend to be rather expensive. Through this committee we want to provide our fellow students with hands-on experience.’
How many members do you have?
‘We started really small. There was five or six of us, but now we already have more than forty members. We are also partnering with A3T, the UT student drone team, but we are still figuring out the details. We started the committee earlier this year and just on Friday we officially opened our doors.’
Can students still join the committee?
‘Yes, but for now we will try to keep the committee only for people from the ITC faculty because we already have a lot more members than we expected.’
What type of activities will you organize?
‘We have already several workshops planned. We want the members to learn how to build and fly drones. We’d also like to do sessions with ITC experts, to teach students how to handle drones. We will not use the lab ones, but more inexpensive versions so that it’s okay if students crash them. Students are often afraid of flying a drone, because they don’t want to break it. We will try to break this stigma and show them that it’s actually quite easy and there is nothing to be afraid of. Later on we’d like to focus on applications of lab drones. We’ll also hold social events and many contests. We will split our members into teams and organize drone races, for example. Most of all, we want to spark interest in drones in students’ minds, so they think about using UAV’s in their field of expertise.’
