Drone Squadron Ready for Take off!

Pupils in the Third Year have been learning to fly drones in their computer science lessons. However, at Caterham School we don’t like doing things the ordinary, boring way. It’s far too easy to fly a drone with a traditional controller so we teach our pupils to program their drones instead.

After an introduction to yaw, pitch, roll and gaz, pupils learned how to write lines of programming code on their iPads in the language Swift to control the drones. They soon had them taking off, hovering and landing. Challenges to fly their drones in controlled horizontal and vertical square formations were quickly completed, all the time controlling the drones speed and distance.

As soon as the basics were mastered more complicated manoeuvres were introduced. The most popular of these was to flip the drone in mid-flight. Drones were seen flying across the hall, flipping and returning to their owners. The most complex programming of the day required pupils to make their drones ascend and descend in a spiral formation. This took a great deal of thought and some very precise programming. Success brought great adulation.

Of course, programs sometimes crash when they are not written correctly. So did the drones!

Mr Stokes