Journalism students fly drone on Davis Field

Period 7 journalism students tested the program’s drone yesterday on Davis Field with the help of multimedia specialist Eric Marten.

Journalism adviser Ellen Austin chose to purchase the drone, as she has seen the use of drones for journalistic purposes as a dominant trend at the university level.

“It is clear that we should be seeing what we can do with drones at our level too and gaining that skill and gaining that access to technology,” she said.

The six-pound drone is allowed to fly a maximum of 400 feet off the ground and has a battery life-span of ten minutes, which is indicated by a blinking circle, either green or red, on the drone.

Marten began the class by teaching the students the controlling techniques for the drone and the federal guidelines associated with it.

After his demonstration of calibrating and maneuvering the drone, Vivian Isenberg (12), Aditya Varshney (11), Kshithija Mulam (10) and Kaitlyn Hsu (9) were given the opportunity to fly the drone with the remaining time.

“I don’t think many high school students get to say they flew a drone in a class,” Vivian said. “The controls definitely required some practice, but it was really similar to guiding a remote control helicopter or even a video game.”

Kshithija saw the benefit in this new tool for photos and videos in the future.

“I think the drone will really help the journalism program to expand their coverage because now we can get different angles and perspectives for photography and video that we couldn’t get before,” she said.

The newspaper staff hopes to use the drone to take photos and videos at the Homecoming game on Saturday, Oct. 6.