Lesson 16
Drones at Everest: How one student went from building with blocks to scaling mountains with drones.
Drones at Everest: How one student went from building with blocks to scaling mountains with drones.
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I usually write about people found in history books, but this story is about a student who made history while he was still in high school. It is also about STEM, about Problem Solving, and about a Linked Globe.
Is there something you have liked doing since you were small? Maybe building with blocks? Or dressing dolls in creative outfits? Or singing and dancing? Imagine a career that lets you follow your passion. Some people are lucky enough to be able to do that. Michael Kronmiller is one of them. In elementary and middle school he was building ships and planes out of LEGO blocks. Some of those creations were amazingly sophisticated and demanded a whole lot of study and concentration. Michael was soon building computers and digging deep into related technology. In high school he began building drones. Those flying vehicles are too small to have a pilot; their movements must be controlled by people on the ground. To work with drones you need to understand computer programming and the basics of mechanical, electrical and aeronautical engineering. Michael was following his passion, so he taught himself those skills. Meanwhile his brother William came home after a trip that took him to Nepal, a small Asian nation edged by India and China. Nepal holds eight of the world’s ten tallest mountains including Mt Everest (the globe’s highest). Those steep mountains carry snow year round and that creates an on-going problem for humans: avalanches, which are big slides of snow. Get caught in an avalanche and you can be buried in snow. To survive you need to get word out as to where you are, bridges may need to be repaired to reach you, you may need other kinds of help. William told Michael of the difficulty of getting aid to people stuck in an avalanche. Imagine that you have been mountain-climbing and that you fell and are stuck in a pile of snow on a mountainside. Roads and trails are covered in snow. Suppose no one is quite sure where you are. Maybe a key suspension bridge has collapsed. How does anyone find and rescue you? How can you survive until they do? Michael, who was now spending a lot of time with drones, decided that they could be programmed to bring supplies to those stranded in an avalanche. They could find victims and also spot environmental problems. But they would need to be designed to deal with ferocious winds and the rarified air found at great heights. In the meantime, Michel had schoolwork to do. He was a student at the Bullis School in Maryland, on the edge of Washington, D.C. where a STEM program brought together science, technology, engineering, and math. (STEM stands for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics.) A school assignment asked students to find a problem and solve it with STEM applications. Michael decided to design a drone that could do search and rescue missions on high mountains. To do that well he realized it would help if he could work with a school in the Himalayas. So he contacted the Kanjirowa National Secondary School in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. What happened? An international project evolved, it brought together students and teachers from two schools in different parts of the globe. Some students and teachers from Nepal came to America. Michael went to Nepal where he met with Sherpa mountain rescuers and was able to fly his drone above the Mt. Everest Base camp, which is more than 18,500 feet above sea level. On that trip he taught students about drones, how to build them using a 3-D printing process, and how to fly them. He and teachers at the Bullis school collaborated with Nepalese teachers, with U.S. Embassy officials, with the Kashmir World Foundation and with the Robotics Association of Nepal to help set up what has become a vibrant STEM education program in Nepal. Michael found that both girls and boys were enthusiastic participants in the program. And he built a search and rescue drone which today is able to find people lost in an avalanche. You can see a video of it in flight here. |
Michael Kronmiller, with drone.
These lessons are intended for your use at home. They are copyrighted by Joy Hakim and are not for commercial use or redistribution.
A Nepalese paper on the drone project
Be a Change Agent * Consider where you live and think big. Can you design a STEM project that will improve things in your community? Maybe a plan for a running path near a school? Maybe a safe walk in the woods trail for small children? Maybe an urban cleanup project that will provide a place for skateboarders? Maybe a plan to use a closed store as a community art center? Be prepared: You may need to combine your STEM project with a petition to your city council for a change in land use. Who will maintain your project? |
Words from Michael:
"The impetus for the drone program was initially motivated by my high school STEM program. During our senior year we had to find a problem and solve it using STEM and the USA applications. In the beginning of the project getting a good grade was my primary motivation, however, the teachers running the program were always supportive of pushing the project further than the initial goal..."
“. . .this project helped me realize that many things in our world that look complicated are actually fairly simple, however, it takes the right teaching method to demonstrate this. I try to stress to people who look at my project that anyone could do this and probably better…
“ I had actually never worked on drones before this point but I felt comfortable with the concept. Drones are an incredible platform for not just various applications but also teaching. It involves mechanical, electrical, and aeronautical engineering, along with computer science. The best part is the systems are so simple that you can learn the basics of all of these fields and then focus on things that specifically make you passionate.
“For me, it was the mechanics behind drone tech, having now built a few I saw the drawbacks in their design and used my skills to create improvements, such as the modular design. I'm not some whiz kid, I was just very passionate about the work I was doing. Any student that is passionate about something can pursue it with the right resources.”
Today Michael Kronmiller is a college student engaged in a professional internship in robotics.
"The impetus for the drone program was initially motivated by my high school STEM program. During our senior year we had to find a problem and solve it using STEM and the USA applications. In the beginning of the project getting a good grade was my primary motivation, however, the teachers running the program were always supportive of pushing the project further than the initial goal..."
“. . .this project helped me realize that many things in our world that look complicated are actually fairly simple, however, it takes the right teaching method to demonstrate this. I try to stress to people who look at my project that anyone could do this and probably better…
“ I had actually never worked on drones before this point but I felt comfortable with the concept. Drones are an incredible platform for not just various applications but also teaching. It involves mechanical, electrical, and aeronautical engineering, along with computer science. The best part is the systems are so simple that you can learn the basics of all of these fields and then focus on things that specifically make you passionate.
“For me, it was the mechanics behind drone tech, having now built a few I saw the drawbacks in their design and used my skills to create improvements, such as the modular design. I'm not some whiz kid, I was just very passionate about the work I was doing. Any student that is passionate about something can pursue it with the right resources.”
Today Michael Kronmiller is a college student engaged in a professional internship in robotics.