By Reese McBride

For the first time ever, a drone competition happened in our main gym during lunch on February 26.  Parents, teachers, and students alike sat on the bleachers, listened to Mr. Sampson’s commentary and watched as our three drone teams, The Hog Flyers, Full Throttle, and Speed Demonz, faced off against the Quad Rockets and Thunderbirds from Norwayne High school. 

The winner of the competition was The Hog Flyers who currently consist of seniors Rylan Carper, Garrett Becker, Seth Gedeon, Charlie Olds, Mikuya Ford, John Lefeld, Zach Goodrich, and Ben Roach.

“Winning that competition was big for a number of reasons,” Roach said. “The first reason is that as the host of the competition, you always want to have a strong showing. Also, being the defending national champions, we wanted to kick off the road to this year’s national competition on a high note. Securing that win was big in boosting our confidence and helping us know what we can improve on as the season continues.” 

The teams usually meet once or twice a week for practice, but most of the team members also practice outside on their own time, not just flying the drones, but also building the little machines and their own brands. The teams are required to advertise themselves and their purpose to judges. Another reason teams are constantly practicing is to pull in sponsors to support their teams. 

The teams are judged on their marketing skills, portfolio, display and engineering, and tested on overall piloting.

To test the pilots, there are two main events. The first is Capture the Flag. Each team is assigned a color and poles of different heights are placed sporadically on the court. On top of these poles are motion sensors. Any time a drone comes close to the sensor it switches to the other color. The goal of the game is to be the team with the most of their color when the timer ends. 

The second game that tests the team’s pilots is a race. The teams must avoid objects, go around poles, or under or over suspended poles. The first team who makes it to the end of the course wins. 

“Drones allow us as teams to learn a lot about the value of teamwork and leadership while also exposing us to many different areas of multiple career fields like business, marketing, and engineering,” Roach said.

The Bellbrook drone teams are looking to make it all the way back to the national competition, which will be in San Diego, California, and start on April 24 this year.

“If all three of the teams from our school qualify, there’s a good chance that all three teams would go,” Carper said. Last year in Denver, Colorado, the Hog Flyers earned 1st place in the National Competition with the Speed Demonz coming in 4th.