Northwest College in Powell has been awarded a federal grant to create a drone certificate program.
A National Science Foundation Grant worth $475,000 will fund the creation of the three-stage certification program. Professors working to stand up the program say it has strong potential and that the grant is large enough that Northwest expects to “ basically purchase a fleet of drones to check out to students.” Program organizers say the curriculum is seeing input from multiple departments, and they hope to launch classes this upcoming fall.
Learn to fly (remote)
“Not only do they not have to know about flying drones, but they don't even need to have a drone,” said Eric Atkinson, a biology professor at Northwest. “We'll get 'em set up from square one.”
Atkinson and others spoke with glee about the program and the possibilities for students to work with internships or apply the certificate within their own field of study.
Greg Smith, a professor of anthropology, says he recently took students to Yellowstone for elk surveying, something a drone assisted them with. He believes people are initially impressed by drones but aren’t aware of how much they can do.
“ I think students can be intrigued into drones by the wow factor,” said Smith. “But I think that wow factor, after maybe a few weeks, [the drone] might end up sitting in their closet. They don't really see all of the applied great things that you can do with drones. That's really a significant part of our focus, is to really take it to the level of doing real work. Ultimately, at the end of our third class.”
The economy in the sky
The low-altitude economy, which refers to activity less than 1,000 feet in the air, has slowly begun to take shape as the Federal Aviation Administration “anticipates that the growth rate in [the commercial drone] sector will remain high over the next few years.”
In other countries like China, a low-altitude economy has taken shape in the form of city and private services utilizing drones and eVOTL (electronic vertical takeoff and landing vehicles) for last-mile delivery, point-to-point transportation, and policing.
In the U.S., the number of remote pilots is expected to grow, with the FAA forecasting that some 361,000may be needed by 2026 – a 1.4 fold increase over 2021.
For Wyomingites, engineering professor and Northwest’s STEM division chair Astrid Northrop expects those jobs to remain mostly outside of the city.
“[Drones are] awesome for collecting data,” said Northrop. “Building the data in to do topographic maps, building data in for survey points, building routes – or finding data, like if somebody's lost in the wilderness.”
Northrop pointed out that drones have come a long way, socially and legally. She believes people are far less surprised when they see someone launch a drone in the park or notice one flying over ahead. Additionally, she said she found the field easier to enter because regulation had become more clearly defined in the last four to five years.
“When we do the drone fly-in, the first thing we do is to certify the students,” said Northrop. “They become certified to be a drone pilot of certain kinds of drones. But the main piece of that is learning the regulatory environment.”
Smith talked about the diversity of career paths available to students who enroll in the program, although he said he somewhat “selfishly” was hoping students would use the certificate for archaeological fields.
“ I've reached out in my archeology world, I've reached out to both the Forest Service and the BLM [Bureau of Land Management] based in Cody,” said Smith. “We have enthusiastic letters of support from them because they have very few people and thousands of archeological sites to document and monitor. Ao they were pretty excited about having some of my students work with them, to help out with that.”
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
