BRYAN, Texas — The Bryan Tigers at Harmony Science Academy were busy at work practicing their flying skills ahead of a promising competition weekend in Sugar Land.
Osman Kucuk is an 8th-grade math teacher at the academy and leads his students in the Drone Club.
He says the success they’ve [achieved] this far hasn’t been easy.
“I am really so proud of them, we have tried and failed, but our hard work has paid off,” Kucuk, the club sponsor said.
Thanks to the team’s stellar performance at a previous aerial drone competition in February, the Tigers have advanced to the championships where they will go up against other charters all across the country.
A team consisting of all girls from the Harmony Science Academy.
12-year-old Grettel Gonzalez is already thinking of a career in caring for animals.
She says learning how to fly these drones is preparing her for working with animals in harder-to-reach habitats.
“This might help me [in my future career] by using a drone to find an animal that [has been] injured [closer] without getting hurt,” Gonzalez said.
Kucuk says hearing about his student’s dreams for the future isn’t uncommon in his class.
For him, teaching the girls is more than about flying drones.
“We are preparing our students for the future, we are not doing a drone club just for fun," Gonzale said.
"They’re also gaining a lot of skills, ones they can write in their resumes when they apply for college.”
Before these drones can even take off the ground, they need a bit of programming to do that – that’s where 12-Year-Old Brittany Fuentes comes in.
“I code and program the directions of where the drone is located and where it has to go," Fuentes said.
"So for me, it’s kind of easy because I’m a really good programmer, I know how to code and work on computers,"
"If you can’t translate something, I can do that by coding and I would like to do that later on in life, as well,"
From flying to code programming, these bright young minds aren’t just ready for their competition, but for a future in S.T.E.M.
For more information on The Harmony Science Academy, click here.