A drone safety course offered at Great Plains College last week was hugely successful in teaching the fundamentals to those in attendance. The two-day course ensured students learned essential operating skills and safety measures associated with the drones.
Lana Rhodes, Program Coordinator and Safety & Skills Training with Great Plains College says the two-day course was overall beneficial for the 18 students.
“The students learned how to fly drones from the very basics. They got some flight training for beginners, and they learned a lot about mapping. They got a drone included in their tuition that they were then able to practice at home a little bit with their drones before attending the course.”
Many laws surround the use and flying of drones, and the course helped make sure students were made aware of all of them, Rhodes added.
“There's a lot of laws that surround the flying of drones, and so they learn the theory of flight and how to look for dangers. They look at weather, all sorts of flight operations, also because it was an AG drone school there was a lot of material on actual drone uses for the farm and practical examples of what farmers specifically could do with drone applications. So that could something as simple as having an infrared sensor on the drone so you can count cattle or maybe you want to use it for crops.”
Those not as tech savvy were able to observe firsthand how the software for the drones works and the course broke it down so those unsure of the technology were made comfortable around it so they can use it to their advantage.
Rhodes detailed how every student felt comfortable at the end of the course and completed it with a sense of accomplishment.
“At the conclusion of the school, the students were able to actually write the Transport Canada BASIC Pilots exam and all of our students were able to pass and having talked to several of them afterwards, they were quite thankful that they were able to take the course prior to writing that because some had attempted the exam prior to taking a course and were not successful. So they got the information that they needed to be able to obtain their pilots license.”
Drone used during 2 day course at Great Plains CollegeOverall, the two-day drone course was appreciated by all, including Rhodes.
“Very pleased all around with the partnership that we had in place with Landview that offered this course in Kindersley.”
Great Plains College hopes to run the course at this time again in 2023 with plans of growing the use of drones in every field of work.
Thu, Apr 25, 9:30 AM
