UND staff teaches kids the benefits of drones with Smart Grant

NEW TOWN, ND ( KXNET ) — A new project is taking off in New Town, with a whole lot of help, from many others.

Students from every part of the MHA Nation are participating in different activities all week.

Kids from the Boys and Girls Club are there for a special day at the MHA Interpretive Center.

“This day, today, is called our drone camp. It is actually a part of our annual summer science and culture camp that the college organizes and conducts along with funding from the Epp Score Grant, the Epp score program, at the University of North Dakota,” said Kerry Hartman, the Science Chair for Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College.

Before the kids could even start flying, there was a safety lesson. One station outside was called airworthiness flight training. Keeping kids busy, flying through an obstacle course, by sharpening their aviation skills.

Another station worked on precision delivery, where they worked together as one, giving the pilot directions on how to hit a target.

And finally, they took to the skies to show what they have learned.

“One of them was an obstacle course where they were herding tennis balls around with the draft of the drone,” said Hartman.

This drone project is funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation through the smart grant. The Smart grants is a new grant program funding $500 million dollars over five years to smart transportation technology. Which, according to Stan Caldwell, the director of the smart grants program, is the biggest investment in this type of technology in history.

He adds the smart grants come in two stages.

“This grant today for the MHA Nation is nearly $2M for this project they received for this first stage. If they are successful in this stage they can be then applying for a stage two grant which could be up to $15M,” explained Caldwell.

Hartman mentions they’re hoping to develop a transportation network for medicine, getting people in Twin Buttes, their medication quicker.

The University of North Dakota was also on hand, doing two demonstrations with drones, one using a medium size drone to pick up a package, and the second one using a smaller drone showing how they use them for search and rescue missions.

KX News’ Corbin Warnock spoke with two campers on what they learned as well as what they liked.

“One of the things is not to ever run into an aircraft when you are like flying. So it can’t like damage the aircraft or make it go down,” said camper, Kiotti Ruiz.

“Actually get to fly the bigger drone outside doing a square and then a circle considering I did the square pretty well,” said camper, Devoe Furr.

Experts say drones are versatile and depending on the model and size, can range anywhere from $500 to more than $100,000.

“We are also seeing drones being abled to be used to inspect infrastructure. So there is a lot of times where drones can be used where they need to look under bridges or look at other parts of infrastructure or be able to inspect dams,” said Caldwell.

Caldwell adds we are also seeing drones being used in planning and construction as well. He says they’re also exposing children to this technology, earlier to prepare them for jobs in this field, in the future.

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