Steve Rinard has lived in the Pacific North West his entire life. For the last 13 years, he has been teaching in the math and science department at Ridgefield High School (RHS), a school with around 800 students in Clark County, Washington. He is currently teaching AP Calculus and Algebra and an elective that he just introduced to the school system, Engineering Through Drones. Before this year, Mr. Rinard had never used a drone, the total of his knowledge about drones was based on what he would hear in news reports.

After attending two teacher conferences that featured lectures on using drones as educational tools, he was hooked. Mr. Rinard fondly says that he “has this curse of always wanting to learn and know more,” and so he dove into researching how to implement a drone program at RHS. “Once I saw them in action,” Mr. Rinard said, “I felt that it was something we could offer that would really add to our students’ learning.” If there was ever a time to introduce a new and engaging method of learning, this was the year.

The beginning of the year started with all RHS students attending school remotely because of COVID-19 quarantine requirements. Mr. Rinard was determined to find a way to keep his teenage students interested in learning in a virtual environment. While drones have been steadily growing in popularity, the multitude of case uses explored because of COVID-19 have been overwhelming, making them more ideal than ever to use as teaching props. So Mr. Rinard began the year by teaching his students the basics of drones from his remote classroom.

The Engineering Through Drones program began with discussions on the many ways drones have been used, and how they have progressed, especially in the last few years. From there, Mr. Rinard instructed the class on the principles of drone engineering so that when in-person instruction resumed, the kids would be ready for some hands on drone experiences. Fortunately, RHS students did not have to wait too long to get back into the school building. By the middle of the spring semester, Mr. Rinard once again had students in his classroom, and it was time to bring out the drone kits the school had purchased.

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Rinard’s students went through a lot of engineering trials and errors to build their own drones. The students had to figure out the math and science behind what it would take to get their drones airborne. Matthew Vance, a senior at RHS was really impressed with the class and the skills he learned from it. “The actual physical assembly wasn’t that difficult,” Vance said, “but the calibration and technical aspects were a bit more tricky.” On a crystal clear blue morning in May, Mr. Rinard’s class finally got the chance to venture out to the athletic fields and see just how well the custom built drones could fly.

For the most part, all of the student’s drones flew successfully! One pair of students did lose control of their drone, which resulted in having to untangle it from a blackberry bush. But as Mr. Rinard pointed out, that’s the reality of drones. Sometimes drones crash, and sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board and re-engineer. Mr. Rinard said that the next step he hopes to take with his students is how to program the drones to carry out autonomous missions. All of what Mr. Rinard is teaching in the drone program has concrete applications in the real world. Taking Mr. Rinard’s class helped clarify Josie Debord’s next steps after she graduates. “I knew I wanted to take some sort of engineering class so that I could figure it out before college,” Josie said, “get a better idea of what I want to do.” Because Mr. Rinard brought drones into his virtual and in-person classroom, his students will be leaving school with skills that could aid them in getting a job or continuing their higher education.