Project Report
| Apr 27, 2017
Academy Camp 2017 Spring - Flying Classroom
![Simulating the view from the drone]()
Simulating the view from the drone
Please find a Japanese version of this report here.
During the three-day weekend in March (18-20) in Japan, we had a "flying classroom" as Academy Camp 2017 Spring. It was our third camp staying in the "Student-built Campus" at Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC), Keio University, in Fujisawa, Kanagawa. We had 26 children from Fukushima including four high school students who acted as sub-leaders. Three of them had priorly learnt how to pilot drones in a joint program between their town and Consortium for Co-Creation of Drone Collaborative Society, Keio Research Institute at SFC, which co-sponsored this camp with Academy Camp.
During the flying classroom, we flew many things like paper planes, drones, and some paper objects children designed by themselves. On the first day, after the orientation and team building session that involved designing paper planes to satisfy some conditions, we learnt the theory of lift considered to be correct utilizing materials by NASA, referring to some common misunderstandings. After that, we tried to verify the current theory using paper planes. On the second day, we trained ourselves to fly small drones, planned how to shoot aerial images by piloting a little bigger drone, and actually shot takes. On the third day, we held a contest for paper objects designed specifically to either 1) fall staright, 2) stay in the air for a long time, or 3) go far in the air. We tested them by dropping them from the second floor of a university building, and then made our challenges from the third floor. It was amazing to see how much children can achieve in such a short period.
After the camp, we received overwhelming messages of gratitude from parents. One parent told us that their boy wanted to learn more about drones, and began his research on the web. Another parent told us that their boy tried to explain her enthusiastically the correct theory of lift. We are glad that our camp seems to have worked as a good introduction to stimulate the children's curiosity.
![Flying things are fun]()
Flying things are fun
![Being taken video while running after it]()
Being taken video while running after it
![Learning how to pilot and shoot from the air]()
Learning how to pilot and shoot from the air
![Future engineer explains his winning design]()
Future engineer explains his winning design
![Checking out from the class room]()
Checking out from the class room
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