New Mexico students take part in drone competition

Students from across New Mexico took flight at the Albuquerque Public Schools Aerial Drone Competition last weekend.

Albuquerque High School hosted its first aerial drone competition last Saturday in the school’s gym.

“We didn’t have one here in Albuquerque so this will be our first one. … Before this you had to go to Farmington or the Mescalero Apache nation,” said Valerie Kovach, a science teacher at Albuquerque High and coordinator for the competition.

Schools in attendance included Albuquerque High, Volcano Vista, Atrisco Heritage, Farmington, the Laguna-Acoma High School, Mission Achievement and Success Charter School and Mescalero Apache. Mescalero Apache rose to the top with 87 points in both the semifinal and final rounds. Their allied teams, the Crazy Buffalo and the COW Tippers, were awarded the Teamwork Award, and the COW Tippers also won the overall Excellence Award, which qualified them for nationals.

“It feels nice. It’s our first time winning the team award, and it was unexpected to be in first place,” said Clarence Sagel, a member of the Crazy Buffalo team.

The competition was broken into two sections, the qualifying round and the playoffs.

“We have teams working on four different missions … and all of these points get put together to help with the rankings, before we do more of a tournament-style playoff,” said Gretchen Greer, a coach for Farmington.

In the qualifying round, students competed in different challenges to earn points for their two-person teams. The challenges included the skills section, during which a single pilot flew a drone through a course; the autonomous section, in which students wrote code to guide their drones through a course; and the teamwork section, in which two teams collaborate. Every team competed in nine teamwork matches prior to the semifinals.

The teamwork challenges are the majority of the competition. This structure allows competitors to collaborate and learn valuable skills.

“Mainly teamwork and communication are two (benefits),” said Soo Lee, a pilot for Albuquerque High School’s A Team.

Students earn points by completing a variety of tasks with their drones, including moving ping-pong balls through a maze, knocking over small pillars and flying through hoops or under arches. Students could also earn points for their landings, where they could either attempt to land in the center of a target or on top of a small box.

“Patience, hand-eye coordination, communication skills, leadership skills — I mean, you could pretty much think of anything skills-wise and you could probably utilize it here,” said Abran Angel, a competitor at the drone competition.

The second half of the competition was the knockout round. The top eight teams organized themselves into two-team alliances and competed in teamwork challenges.

The four teams that made it through to the finals were the Crazy Buffalo with the COW Tippers from Mescalero Apache High School, and the Farmington Flyers with Albuquerque High’s A Team. Both alliances tied with 87 points.

However, Mescalero overcame the Farmington-Albuquerque High School alliance in the finals, when Farmington’s drone grazed an arch and landed on its back, followed by Albuquerque High’s drone hitting a pipe in the maze and also landing upside down. This left both Farmington and Albuquerque’s drones unable to move for the remainder of the match, allowing Mescalero to come out on top.

“It feels amazing, because we’ve been trying to get this excellence award for like seven competitions now, and we finally got it,” said Caydence Palmer, a COW Tippers team member.