On May 1, Wings Over the Rockies: Exploration of Flight in Englewood hosted a unique, esport competition 鈥� U.S. Drone Soccer鈥檚 first academic tournament in North America.
Four schools competed in the inaugural event, including Westminster High School. While the large hall buzzed with pregame activities, like labeling batteries and calibrating and testing the drones, sophomore Khang Tran was already hyping up his nine-person team.
鈥淭oday, we鈥檙e here to win right? Right,鈥� he said. 鈥淢ake sure you got your A game ready.鈥�
Drone soccer is played indoors in an enclosed 10x10x20-foot netted arena. The players stand outside the boundaries and pilot remote-controlled hobby quadcopters enclosed in protective plastic spheres, which create small soccer balls.
The goals are vertical hoops located on opposing ends of the court. A team scores one point when the striker flies their drone through the hoop.
The sport looks a lot like Quidditch, the game that originated in the Harry Potter books, Major Kyle Sanders, a co-founder of U.S. Drone Soccer.
The event is a round-robin tournament, and each team has three players: one striker and two goalies. Westminster faced off against Colorado Spring鈥檚 Coronado High School in the first match. Each match has three 3-minute rounds.
Sanders is the tournament announcer.
鈥淎ll right, both teams arm your drones,鈥� he said. 鈥淩eady, three, two, one.鈥�
The drones buzz loudly as they quickly zip through the air. Westminster鈥檚 are painted teal and black, the school colors. The striker drones have two pieces of tape hanging from them to avoid confusion.
鈥淭hey got two for Westminster, one for Coronado,鈥� Sanders calls out.
Drone soccer was introduced in South Korea in 2016 and has spread to other countries. Here in the U.S., the sport is designed to be both fun and educational.
The U.S. Drone Soccer is designed for sixth through 12th grade students. The curriculum is a perfect for teaching, said Sanders, because it 鈥渢akes robotics and moves it into a whole new dimension.鈥�
鈥淭he goal is to show them future career paths,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f we can get them excited with the game, they鈥檙e going to build and program the drones and not realize that those skills can immediately go into an aerospace career that even in high school, they can get paid to do this."
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, 16-year-olds can get a drone pilot certificate. include filming video, surveying land and search and rescue. The for a beginner pilot is almost $40 an hour.
The organization decided to first do intensive focus testing in Colorado, which is home to many aerospace companies, before making the program available nationally.
The week before the tournament, Tran is in the Aerospace Engineering class at Westminster High School. The sophomore loves to solve problems and is rummaging through a plastic bin looking for screws to fix a drone.
鈥淗ere we are, here鈥檚 one of them, just need one more now,鈥� he said. 鈥淗ere鈥檚 the other, cool.鈥�
Drone soccer is technically an after-school program at the high school, but teacher Robbie Ferguson decided to introduce it during his aerospace engineering class as an extension activity. He wants to get the students excited about drones.
鈥淚鈥檓 going to give you guys the flight log,鈥� he said while handing each student a sheet of paper.
The school purchased the U.S. Drone Soccer curriculum, which provides equipment, training and lesson plans. The students build, operate and learn how to fly the drones.
Today, they are doing maintenance.
鈥淚鈥檝e noticed a lot of the screws are missing,鈥� Ferguson said. 鈥淟et鈥檚 go ahead and maintain them, program them today, make sure you鈥檙e filing out that flight log.鈥�
The students will also learn to code by programming the drones using an open-source software. The drones are fully customizable.
鈥淚f they鈥檝e been flying for a while, they can actually adjust the settings so that it鈥檚 a lot more aggressive and they鈥檙e a lot faster than the other ones,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut right now, since this is all brand new to all of them, we鈥檝e kind of scaled it back.鈥�
Back at the competition, it is the second round and Westminster has swapped out players. Three new students man the drones, including Tran, the striker.
Westminster鈥檚 black and teal drones bobbed, weaved and flew around rapidly. The defenders blocked the opposing striker and Tran scored multiple times.
鈥淲estminster is ahead by one,鈥� Sanders announced.
When the round was over, they had the lead.
But in the third round, Westminster鈥檚 drones had calibration issues and the team ended up losing it and the match. The school went on to play two more games and finished the tournament in third place.
But Tran still had a great time and hopes to play again next school year.
鈥淲ow, that was incredible,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e were so close, but we all did really great, especially for the amount of experience we鈥檝e had.鈥�
Ferguson, who coached the team, echoed Tran's sentiments.
鈥淚鈥檓 super happy, we still did really wonderful. I鈥檓 proud of my kiddos.鈥�
