The center developed the drone camp curriculum in collaboration with the Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (MAAP), the university’s Federal Aviation Administration-designated drone test site, and Wing, the Google sister company that launched the country’s first residential drone delivery service in Christiansburg in 2019. 

Lester works with nonprofits, communities, and other partners to reach kids beyond the typical cohort that flocks to STEM camps. More than 60 percent of the students at the drone camp identified as Black or Hispanic. For more than 40 percent of them, neither parent had a four-year college degree. 

“The families of the kids that we try to recruit for the Imagination camps are often not aware of what’s possible,” she said. “The technology to fill out an online application can be daunting. Transportation is a barrier. There are so many barriers that can keep families from pursuing an experience like this.”

Lester’s group tries to remove…

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Source: vtx.vt.edu