Bonham Middle School robotics students were joined recently by local drone pilot and software coder Kevin Searcy, Ector County ISD Executive Director of Career and Technical Education Ryan Merritt and Principal Kamye Smith, not to mention robotics teacher Ruben Guevara for a look at some career possibilities.
Searcy showed the students some Mavic 2 drones Oct. 18 that can be flown in the classroom. They are professional drones, but they’re small, easy to manage and cost about $1,800. Four-hundred feet is usually the maximum height you can fly a drone and most of the time they will not let you “if you bought a real quality drone.” Less expensive ones probably won’t fly that high anyway.
“It’s expensive, but if they break it the individual parts aren’t too bad,” Searcy said.
If something breaks off, like the rotors, they can be put back on and they’re replaceable.
“These are a couple of dollars a piece. The arm is maybe about $18, $19. It’s just taking it apart and putting it back together,” Searcy said. The battery is the most expensive part at $80 to $90 as it has GPS in it. You can recharge it as often as you like, but the battery life keeps getting shorter.
Some of the other middle school robotics programs had paused for a variety of reasons, so Guevara was able to get their kits. Now he has 120 kits for 120 students, which is about the amount of students in the program.
Last year, he and some of the other robotics teachers developed a corps of robotics teachers. There are three now, after losing a couple, but a couple of others have been hired.
“We’d love to do a robotics competition, but we’re not there. I bring out the trophies from the years past, so I can show the kids … A lot of these kids were born in 2010, 2011. … These trophies are as old as that. I thought it would be fitting to have something to show Bonham has been in robotics for a while,” Guevara said.
A few years ago, the school was going to get rid of its robotics gear but Guevara decided to keep them in storage at home.
“I never knew that they would ask me three years later to be a robotics teacher, so I brought all the robotics kits from my storage unit. I brought them here and I’ve got them in the back room,” he added.
In the absence of contests, Guevara decided to add drones. Merritt had ideas along the same lines and that’s when Searcy came into the picture.
“That’s something that’s near and dear to my heart. I used to fly aircraft for many, many years,” said Guevara who is retired from the Navy.
He flew six different types of aircraft in his career as a naval flight officer. Guevara also flew a variety of missions involving everything from SpaceX to hunting submarines and tracking terrorists over Iraq. He did 120 missions over Iraq providing support for ground troops.
“We protected them and also tracked the whereabouts of the enemy and we provided intelligence,” Guevara said.
Searcy said he uses a more expensive model than the one shown to Guevara’s students last Wednesday to survey for oil and gas firms. Sometimes he’ll check for methane emissions and now he’s looking for where they are placing their lines, especially when they’re doing saltwater disposal to make sure there are no environmental hazards.
“We can collect quite a bit of data. It’s pretty cool,” Searcy said.
Guevara said students can get a drone license at 16.
Searcy said they can fly a drone now without the license, but they have to keep it within sight.
“They can get seven, eight miles out and do a survey of something,” Searcy said. “To do that at 16, they can make some good money just as a side business. There are really great options.”
Merritt said he watched the drones a few weeks ago when Searcy brought them to Bonham.
“It was really fun for me and I was just as excited as all the students that were there,” Merritt said.
He noted that there is an eighth grade event coming up early next year so students can go to Odessa College and find out what kind of programs they can take in high school. “A lot of students in robotics in middle school, they find their passion. That’s what they’re interested in and so we have that same opportunity in high school where you can take engineering and robotics classes,” Merritt said.
At the event, which will likely be held around the end of January 2024, students will meet with high school students and teachers and even Odessa College faculty to talk about different options.
“There’s 27 different program of study options,” Merritt said.
Engineering and robotics are among them, but there is also welding, automotive technology, teaching, health sciences and more.
“What we’re doing today is going to really help us inform how we implement drone technology within your high school experience. The stuff that you’re doing now, you’re on the cutting edge of this. Depending on how well it turns out” could determine if they have a chance to learn more about drones throughout their high school career, Merritt said.
Guevara said Merritt has approved money to help get drones for the class and they are on order.
“Not only is that going to be coming … We’re also going to be getting all of these lessons with missions and it shows you how to do coding with block coding and Python,” Guevara said.
Smith, the principal, said these students could get their drone certification in high school.
“It’s all about you and your commitment and what you put into it. If you put in that commitment and you try that hard, guys, it’s up to you. It’s only a great thing for you and that’s exciting to see every single one of you being involved in that,” Smith said.
She noted that the ECISD bond issue includes a career and technical education center where students will have the opportunity to go to high school.
Eighth-grader Brandon Leland said he thinks robotics is really fun.
“I love it; the activities and all of that,” Leland said.
Marviss Runfal, also in eighth grade, said robotics is “fun. It’s easy.”
“This is my first time and I like it,” he added.
