About 90 students in grades 9-12 from area school districts plus 18 teachers have been attending a Drone Days event hosted at The Beeches professional campus by Project Fibonacci, according to ANDRO Computational Solutions which is one of the sponsors.
The event, which began Tuesday and concludes today, included learning how to build and operate unmanned aerial vehicles/drones, including operational regulatory information.
Among participating schools: Rome, Adirondack, Camden, Holland Patent, Oriskany, Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, Westmoreland, Oneida, and Madison-Oneida BOCES Career and Technical Educational Programs.
Curriculum providers included several ANDRO staff members as well as area teachers.
It is “the third annual event and there are many returning teams as well as several new attendees,” said Maria Smith, the 2018 Project Fibonacci STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math) Conference chair. The Project Fibonacci initiative was founded by Andrew Drozd, president/chief scientist of ANDRO. Other sponsors for this week’s event included the Mid-State Teacher Center, Staff and Curriculum Development of Madison-Oneida BOCES.
The event comes on the heels of a recent announcement by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of a NASA partnership with NUAIR, manager of the drone testing site at Griffiss International Airport. The state previously announced $30 million for drone research and development in the Rome-Syracuse region.
