Vaughn College’s engineering and technology department welcomed drone and robotics enthusiasts on campus for workshops and to fly their drones in celebration of International Drone Day on Saturday, May 4. Several workshops were organized by the department, and the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Robotics clubs. The event was coordinated in an effort to raise awareness of drones’ versatility and ability to make a positive impact.

The Computer Aided Design workshop provided participants with insight into the process of 3D design and the modeling of quadcopters. The Build a Drone workshop gave an overview of the building and manufacturing process of flying robots. The Python workshop focused on programming and coding with the Python platform and the robotics workshop provided insight into the design, modeling and programming of robots.

Vaughn’s UAV team provided a brief presentation of their drone design and programming and explained their drone design and construction process, which employed 3D printing parts and autonomous programming. A service award was presented to the recent UAV president Chamathke Perera ’19 to celebrate his contribution towards the advancement of Vaughn’s UAV team.

“We want to encourage the community to not just go out and buy a drone, but to build something for themselves,” said Perera. “That’s your opportunity to create a something that doesn’t exist anywhere.”

The participants for the workshops and drone flying session were invited guests and students from New York City and Long Island high schools. Attendees were able to fly their own drones or learned how to fly with the team.

Next year’s international drone day celebration will be on Saturday, May 2, 2020.

Faculty advisors and UAV team award Chamathke Perera ’19 a service award.