{"id":20700,"date":"2017-06-20T16:02:58","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T20:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=20700"},"modified":"2022-03-16T12:38:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T16:38:54","slug":"students-fly-drones-university-of-wisconsin-madison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/students-fly-drones-university-of-wisconsin-madison\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Learn to Fly Drones and Collect Data at University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drones are more than just toys you play with in the park; they can be your next business opportunity. The<\/span> University of Wisconsin<\/span>\u2013<\/span>Madison College of Engineering<\/span><\/a> started <\/span>offering<\/span><\/a> a new class this summer that focuses on the many applications of drones.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are literally hundreds of business applications. The sky\u2019s the limit with what these robots can do,\u201d said <\/span>Chris Johnson<\/span><\/a>, the creator and instructor of this new course. <\/span>Johnson is the director of the UW Flight Lab in Industrial and Systems Engineering, and a program specialist in unmanned aerial systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

The course is called <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Introduction to Unmanned Aircraft Systems<\/span><\/a>\u201d and was created by Johnson after he won a $40,710 grant from the UW College of Engineering Education Innovation Committee.<\/span><\/p>\n

The inaugural class is small with about ten enrolled students, but still large enough to help shape the curriculum for semesters to come. Interest in the class hasn\u2019t just been from engineering students. \u201cThis is offered through the College of Engineering, but I do have students coming from colleges across campus to get licenses to fly drones for commercial purposes,\u201d said Johnson.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Johnson, drones are an emerging technology that can be used for artistic and engineering purposes. One of the business applications he highlighted is the use of drones in construction sites to monitor construction progress, so mistakes can be caught early. \u201cIt\u2019s all about data collection or quality footage for artistic and marketing purposes,\u201d explained Johnson. \u201cDrones are being used to inspect utility lines, railroads, windmills, cell phone towers, you name it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Drones are also being used to assist in farming, firefighting, and emergency response. So why has the university waited until now to offer a class? \u201cThe regulations that govern commercial drone operators were published last August, so the timing was right, \u201csaid Johnson.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first half of the course focuses on the laws and regulations around commercial drone operation. The students study the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations and take the FAA exam as their midterm exam, so they can become FAA-certified. The students also study weather theory and learn how to gain access to controlled airspace to ensure safe drone flying.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the second half of the course, students will get hands-on experience and learn how to run a business on drones. As their final project, students will \u201cactually fly drones and turn the data into an end product, like a marketing video or engineering model,\u201d said Johnson.<\/span><\/p>\n

While this might just be a certification introduction course, Johnson sees this leading to something bigger at the university. \u201cIn the near future, I think we will have courses that are focused on data analytics, artificial intelligence, and remote sensing, some of the deeper engineering type technologies that make drones possible,\u201d Johnson said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drones are more than just toys you play with in the park; they can be your next business opportunity. The University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison College of Engineering started offering a new class this summer that focuses on the many applications of drones. \u201cThere are literally hundreds of business applications. The sky\u2019s the limit with what these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":20703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[647,231,232,558],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic","category-campus-news","category-technology","category-university-of-wisconsin-madison"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/drone.jpg",830,553,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/drone-216x144.jpg",216,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/drone-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/drone.jpg",830,553,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/drone.jpg",830,553,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/drone.jpg",830,553,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/drone.jpg",830,553,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Brian Bonilla","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/brian\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Drones are more than just toys you play with in the park; they can be your next business opportunity. The University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison College of Engineering started offering a new class this summer that focuses on the many applications of drones. \u201cThere are literally hundreds of business applications. The sky\u2019s the limit with what these…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/drone.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}