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Students prepare for major drone competition
FOX 13's Kailey Tracy reports.
PALM HARBOR, Fla. - Most students in the Tampa Bay area started spring break on Friday after school got out. When one group of middle schoolers returns, though, they’ll be preparing for the highest level of competition in their young careers.
What we know:
The competitive drone team at Carwise Middle School in Palm Harbor is the only competitive middle school drone team in Pinellas County. They were just invited to compete in the Southeast Regional Championship Drone Tournament.
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The 16-member squad will travel to Huntsville, Alabama, in April to face off against the top 50 teams in the region.
STEM coordinator and drone coach Ryan O’Shea started the program just two years ago.
"It was just an idea and the kids have taken it and ran with it, or flown with it," O’Shea said with a chuckle. "The amount of talent that these students have is just, it blows my mind. I thought I was good at flying drones myself, and then I see these kids fly."
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Dig deeper:
They compete under the Aerial Drone Competition format, which splits students into two distinct fields of play. In the teamwork field, students must communicate constantly to use the drones to push ping-pong balls over obstacles, and move them from one side to the other to score points.
The second field focuses on solo performance, showcasing different skills and requiring students to use coding to navigate drones throughout a course without using a remote control. The teamwork field gives students one minute and 30 seconds to complete as much as they can. The other field gives 60 seconds for the pilot skills and three minutes for the autonomous, or flying without a remote control.
For seventh grader Austin Klein, the appeal of the club goes beyond the technical specifications.
"Drones are just going to be used more and more, so it's just fun flying around having fun with a bunch of friends that's just like you that want to do the same exact thing," Klein said.
While the regional tournament is currently the highest official level of competition, O'Shea noted that an international world invite remains a possibility for the future. The Aerial Drone Competition started in 2019, he said.
What they're saying:
Eighth grader Joshua Stoskus attributed the team's success to a mix of preparation and intuition.
"It just depends on natural talent, natural instinct, just whether you've had experience with it before or just if you're a quick learner," Stoskus said.
Regardless of the hardware they bring home, O'Shea said the goal is to provide skills to the students that they take into the future.
"Most of these students are the students who wouldn't be playing on the football field or a baseball field, but they still need to have that teamwork experience," O’Shea said.
What's next:
The Southeast Regional Championship takes place April 17-18.
The Source: Information in this story is from Carwise Middle School students and staff.