Kids at country schools face more barriers to further education after secondary school than their city counterparts. Of those kids continuing after secondary school, fewer are choosing STEM streams, and too few of them are girls. To make an impact on this issue, in 2014 Pete Cohen, Paula Ngov, and I founded Flying Robot School (FRS). FRS teaches rural kids the theory, flying, and coding of drones to solve real-world problems. In this talk I will tell the story of what happened when we took drones to schools, and what we have learned. I’ll explain how the kids have benefited and how benefits also flowed to our employers, sponsors, and ourselves. FRS is how we wanted to tackle a social issue that concerned us, but there are many great ways to make a social impact with your tech skills. This talk will offer some ways to think about the types of impact your skills can make, how to apply them for maximum effect, and why the benefits outweigh the effort.

1. What I learned while
teaching kids at
Flying Robot School
Daryl Wilding-McBride
CTO @ DiUS

2. CTO at DiUS
CASA-certified Remotely Piloted Aircraft controller
Co-founder of Flying Robot School
About me

4. Evaluating causes
Flying Robot School
Other programs for social impact
Benefits of volunteering your tech skills
About this talk

5. Colleagues &
co-founders

6. Motivation

7. People want to make
things better

8. ‘Work’ and ‘Life’
are not separate

9. Paid work
Hobbies
Family
Waking hours capacity
Unpaid work

10. Assessing
effort

11. Bread on the table.
Wolves from the door.

12. Good tech.
Learning new things.

13. Business impact.
Innovative in some way.

14. Creates a legacy.
Passes the BBQ test.

15. It’s your assessment

16. Your level varies over time

17. Unpaid
work
Paid
work

18. How effective do I want to be?

19. 80000hours.org
80,000 hours

21. Doing good, lean

22. PlayPumps

25. Personal fit
Tractability
Neglectedness
Scale

26. Personal fit
Tractability
Neglectedness
Scale
Magnitude of the
problem.

27. Personal fit
Tractability
Neglectedness
Scale
How many resources are
dedicated to it.

28. Personal fit
Tractability
Neglectedness
Scale
How easy is it to make
progress.

29. Personal fit
Tractability
Neglectedness
Scale
How likely are you to
make a difference.

30. Personal fit
Tractability
Neglectedness
Scale

31. Prioritising causes

32. Rural education

33. Access from
rural areas
Too few
choosing STEM
Too few girls in
STEM
Rural education

34. Access to Education for Rural Students, Victorian Auditor-General, April 2014
http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/publications/20140403-Rural-Students/20140403-Rural-Students.html
Country kids are less likely to
continue to further study

35. Community
expectations
Individual
aspirations
Family
expectations
Financial issues
Isolation
Barriers

36. Too few choose STEM

37. “the subject is fun and interesting”
science
93%
mathematics
75%year 6
63% 42%year 9
Science and Mathematics Participation Rates and Initiatives, Victorian Auditor-General’s Report, 2012
http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/publications/20120606-science-and-maths/20120606-science-and-maths.pdf

38. Too few are girls

39. 2001
7.5%
2011
21.5%girls
3.1% 9.8%boys
Marginson, S, Tytler, R, Freeman, B & Roberts, K (2013). STEM: Country comparisons. Report for the Australian Council of Learned Academies
http://www.acola.org.au/PDF/SAF02Consultants/SAF02_STEM_%20FINAL.pdf
not continuing with mathematics
after year 10

40. Flying Robot School

41. Help kids overcome the
barriers

42. Get them thinking about
worthwhile work

43. Daryl Pete
Paula
(P2)
Trevor
Paula
(P1)

44. Spend a school day with
drones

45. Role models

46. Experience they wouldn’t
have otherwise

48. Topics
Lean Open source
Physics
Sensors
Worthwhile
applications
Manual control
Autonomous
flight
Extending the
robot
Coding flight
Safety &
Regulations

49. Topics
Lean Open source
Physics
Sensors
Worthwhile
applications
Manual control
Autonomous
flight
Extending the
robot
Coding flight
Safety &
Regulations

51. C
A
B
D
2
4
3m
3m
3m 3m
3
1

52. Rural applications
Checking sheepSurveying crops
Land along
waterways
Dam levels
Measuring
carbon
Scouting

53. What we’ve learned

54. We’ve iterated the vehicle
… and the application

55. Version 1:
Build a quadcopter

58. Version 2:
Sensor pod

62. Version 3:
Off-the-shelf

63. http://sustainability.ceres.org.au/project/what-inspires-me-interview-with-andrew-mahar/

64. What’s the challenge?
Can you use the UAV to
measure the circumference of
a tree’s trunk at 120 cm
from the ground?
120cm
? cm

67. Version 4:
Modifiable off-the-shelf

68. https://3dr.com/about/open-source/

69. What’s next

70. Topics
Lean Open source
Physics
Sensors
Worthwhile
applications
Manual control
Autonomous
flight
Extending the
robot
Coding flight
Safety &
Regulations

71. Topics
Lean Open source
Physics
Sensors
Worthwhile
applications
Manual control
Autonomous
flight
Extending the
robot
Coding flight
Safety &
Regulations

72. http://dronekit.io/
DroneKit

73. C
A
B
D
2
4
3m
3m
3m 3m
3
1

74. from FRSSolo import Vehicle, Location
from math import sin, radians
vehicle = Vehicle()
home = vehicle.location
heading = vehicle.heading
theta = atan(5.0/10.0) # finally we get to use trigonometry
d = 5.0/sin(theta) # distance from home to coneA
coneA = home.translate(d, (heading + degrees(theta)) % 360)
coneB = coneA.translate(10, heading)
coneC = coneB.translate(10, (heading - 90) % 360)
coneD = coneC.translate(10, (heading - 180) % 360)

75. takeoff(3) # ascend to 3 meters above ground
move_to(coneA)
move_to(coneB)
move_to(coneC)
move_to(coneD)
move_to(coneA)
move_to(home)
land()

76. Measuring effectiveness

77. 5 schools
63 kids

78. 27%
Girls attending overall

79. 0%
Girls attending after incursion model
40%

80. 97%
Fun & interesting

81. 69%
Certain about a career in STEM

82. 90%
Girls certain about a career in STEM

87. Scale Good
Neglectedness Good
Tractability Needs work
Personal fit Great

88. Tractability

90. “I hope this is going to be good, because
I skipped a night out getting pissed with
my mates last night.”
Year 10 boy

91. Other paths to impact

92. Random Hacks of Kindness

93. Code Club

94. FIRST Robotics

95. NodeBots (http://nodebots.io/)
Robogals (http://www.robogals.org/)

96. Why it’s important to
volunteer your tech skills

97. Kids
Benefits
Us
Our employers
Community
Sponsors

98. Try a startup, without leaving
your day job

99. An obligation to do it

100. Helps increase your
worthwhile work

101. A three-point plan

102. Decide how effective
you want to be

103. Assess causes

104. Invest your effort

105. Daryl Wilding-McBride
@DarylWMcB
daryl@flyingrobotschool.org
github.com/flyingrobotschool