Area educators learn about drones' versatility

Mar. 30—Muskogee's Georgia-Pacific paper mill uses drones to keep its facility clean and safe, company drone operators say.

"Whenever we're making paper, we create a lot of combustible dust up in the rafters and machinery, and these drones actually help us mitigate that," operator Payden Metzger said. "This is where the Helios comes in. We'll actually fly that up into the area and knock that dust to the ground so it can be cleaned up."

Area educators attending the Taking Flight professional development session Friday learned how drones do custodial work, and much more. Taking Flight was presented by Port Muskogee at its Robinson Gallery and Event Center.

Metzger said Helios has proven to be safer and more cost effective than "getting someone up there to vacuum the dust."

Muskogee High School broadcasting, media and web design teacher Shane Sanderson said drones can be used to create movies and commercials.

"Videography using drones is one of the growing things in the industry," he said, adding that drones go beyond video entertainment.

"One of the big things around here is for agricultural use, land speculation and real estate," he said. "You can take a drone out to a piece of property you can program GPS coordinates and have them video the property and it allows real estate owners to help sell and evaluate the properties."

Drones also can help create jobs, educators were told.

Sara Nichols, who does workforce development at Port Muskogee, said aerospace and drone technology is a growing field.

"In your classrooms is the future workforce of Muskogee," Nichols told the teachers.

MHS student Maddix Rasmussen presented videos of the school campus he made with a drone.

"I 100% see myself doing drone technology," he said. "I'm passionate about it and the work that I can do."

Representatives of B&T Group told how they use drones to help offer infrastructure solutions for wireless carriers and tower owners. For example, drones could be used to help measure tower height.

Friday's professional development session drew teachers from Muskogee, Hilldale, Fort Gibson, Gore, Oktaha, Porter and Braggs.

Pryor High School aviation and engineering teacher Jenny Peters talked about how schools can incorporate drone technology into their programs. She said no school is too small to have a drone program. She said small schools, such as Braggs, might even have an advantage.

"They have a smaller community, so advertising and getting interest is going to be really easy," Peters said.

Braggs science teacher David Davidson, said he's especially exited about setting up a program.

"We are currently building our STEM program up with this," Davidson said. "We started with not a whole lot, so this is a lot if information I'm able to give to our students and start a generational concept for a lot of them."

Porter Middle School science teacher Darron McCord said the field of drone technology is growing, "so this could help them find jobs they might be interested in."