what i learned while teaching kids at flying robot school - yow! night august 2016

What I learned while teaching kids at Flying Robot School

Daryl Wilding-McBride CTO @ DiUS

CTO at DiUS

CASA-certified Remotely Piloted Aircraft controller

Co-founder of Flying Robot School

About me

Evaluating causes

Flying Robot School

Other programs for social impact

Benefits of volunteering your tech skills

About this talk

Colleagues & co-founders

Motivation

People want to make things better

‘Work’ and ‘Life’ are not separate

Paid workHobbies

Family

Waking hours capacity

Unpaid work

Assessing effort

Bread on the table. Wolves from the door.

Good tech. Learning new things.

Business impact. Innovative in some way.

Creates a legacy. Passes the BBQ test.

It’s your assessment

Your level varies over time

Unpaid work

Paid work

How effective do I want to be?

80000hours.org

80,000 hours

Doing good, lean

PlayPumps

Personal fit

Tractability

Neglectedness

Scale

Personal fit

Tractability

Neglectedness

Scale Magnitude of the problem.

Personal fit

Tractability

Neglectedness

ScaleHow many resources are dedicated to it.

Personal fit

Tractability

Neglectedness

Scale

How easy is it to make progress.

Personal fit

Tractability

Neglectedness

Scale

How likely are you to make a difference.

Personal fit

Tractability

Neglectedness

Scale

Prioritising causes

Rural education

Access from rural areas

Too few choosing STEM

Too few girls in STEM

Rural education

Access to Education for Rural Students, Victorian Auditor-General, April 2014 http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/publications/20140403-Rural-Students/20140403-Rural-Students.html

Country kids are less likely to continue to further study

Community expectations

Individual aspirations

Family expectations

Financial issues

IsolationBarriers

Too few choose STEM

“the subject is fun and interesting”

science

93%

mathematics

75%year 6

63% 42%year 9

Science and Mathematics Participation Rates and Initiatives, Victorian Auditor-General’s Report, 2012 http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/publications/20120606-science-and-maths/20120606-science-and-maths.pdf

Too few are girls

2001

7.5%

2011

21.5%girls

3.1% 9.8%boys

Marginson, S, Tytler, R, Freeman, B & Roberts, K (2013). STEM: Country comparisons. Report for the Australian Council of Learned Academies http://www.acola.org.au/PDF/SAF02Consultants/SAF02_STEM_%20FINAL.pdf

not continuing with mathematics after year 10

Flying Robot School

Help kids overcome the barriers

Get them thinking about worthwhile work

Daryl Pete

Paula (P2)

Trevor

Paula (P1)

Spend a school day with drones

Role models

Experience they wouldn’t have otherwise

Topics

Lean Open source

Physics

Sensors

Worthwhile applications

Manual controlAutonomous

flightExtending the

robot

Coding flight

Safety & Regulations

Topics

Lean Open source

Physics

Sensors

Worthwhile applications

Manual controlAutonomous

flightExtending the

robot

Coding flight

Safety & Regulations

C

AB

D

24

3m3m

3m 3m

3

1

Rural applications

Checking sheepSurveying crops

Land along waterways Dam levels

Measuring carbon

Scouting

What we’ve learned

We’ve iterated the vehicle … and the application

Version 1: Build a quadcopter

Version 2: Sensor pod

Version 3: Off-the-shelf

http://sustainability.ceres.org.au/project/what-inspires-me-interview-with-andrew-mahar/

What’s the challenge?

Can you use the UAV to

measure the circumference of

a tree’s trunk at 120 cm

from the ground?

120cm

? cm

Version 4: Modifiable off-the-shelf

https://3dr.com/about/open-source/

What’s next

Topics

Lean Open source

Physics

Sensors

Worthwhile applications

Manual controlAutonomous

flightExtending the

robot

Coding flight

Safety & Regulations

Topics

Lean Open source

Physics

Sensors

Worthwhile applications

Manual controlAutonomous flight

Extending the robot

Coding flight

Safety & Regulations

http://dronekit.io/

DroneKit

C

AB

D

24

3m3m

3m 3m

3

1

from FRSSolo import Vehicle, Location from math import sin, radians

vehicle = Vehicle() home = vehicle.location heading = vehicle.heading theta = atan(5.0/10.0) # finally we get to use trigonometry d = 5.0/sin(theta) # distance from home to coneA coneA = home.translate(d, (heading + degrees(theta)) % 360) coneB = coneA.translate(10, heading) coneC = coneB.translate(10, (heading - 90) % 360) coneD = coneC.translate(10, (heading - 180) % 360)

takeoff(3) # ascend to 3 meters above ground move_to(coneA) move_to(coneB) move_to(coneC) move_to(coneD) move_to(coneA)

move_to(home) land()

Measuring effectiveness

5 schools

63 kids

27%Girls attending overall

0%Girls attending after incursion model

40%

97%Fun & interesting

69%Certain about a career in STEM

90%Girls certain about a career in STEM

Scale Good

Neglectedness Good

Tractability Needs work

Personal fit Great

Tractability

“I hope this is going to be good, because I skipped a night out getting pissed with

my mates last night.”

Year 10 boy

Other paths to impact

Random Hacks of Kindness

Code Club

FIRST Robotics

NodeBots (http://nodebots.io/)

Robogals (http://www.robogals.org/)

Why it’s important to volunteer your tech skills

Kids

Benefits

Us

Our employersCommunity

Sponsors

Try a startup, without leaving your day job

An obligation to do it

Helps increase your worthwhile work

A three-point plan

Decide how effective you want to be

Assess causes

Invest your effort

Daryl Wilding-McBride @DarylWMcB daryl@flyingrobotschool.org github.com/flyingrobotschool