Willard NJROTC Drone Team takes first at Droneageddon

By: 
Steve Chapman

The members of the Willard NJROTC Drone Team pose for a picture at the Area 9 Drone Competition award ceremony. From left: Elijah Rhodes, Tyler Akeman, Commander Merv Dial, area manager, Wayne Hopper, Levi Higginbotham and Ethan Costello.

Levi Higginbotham navigates the team’s drone under a pole held three inches off the ground. The event was the tie-breaker to determine whether the Willard or Mountain Home NJROTC would win the drone competition.

Group takes championship with tie-breaker event at Mountain Home, Ark.
 
They took the championship on their first try in a competition that held for the first time. The Willard Naval Junior ROTC Drone Team, made up of cadets Tyler Akeman, 16, Wayne Hopper, 16, Ethan Costello, 15, Levi Higginbotham, 15 and Elijah Rhodes, 15 won the overall championship in the first-ever Area Nine Drone Competition held at Mountain Home, Ark. on Saturday, Feb. 19 (the team also has a sixth member, but they were ill on the day of the competition and unable to participate).
The events:
The competition, also called “Droneageddon,” consisted of five different events. The first was the lap race, where the drone operators navigated around the court in a head-to-head heat against other drone operators. Second was the Instrumental Flight Rules competition (IFR). Also called “Under the Hood,” the drone operator was blindfolded and navigated the drone according to instructions given to them by another cadet.
Third was the obstacle course. In this race, drone operators navigated their drones past randomly placed obstacles. Fourth was Slalom, where the operators piloted their drones between pole obstacles, alternating with left and right passes, completing a 180-degree turn and returning in the same manner.
The final competition was the relay, where an operator navigated the drone around a pole obstacle, completed a 180-degree turnaround and the returned. This race was a relay event where all team members had to participate.
The races were all timed, and the team with the lowest combined time for all the events would be declared the winner. The Willard NJROTC Drone Team’s times for each event were:
Slalom Event, 207.84 seconds; Relay Event, 194.65 seconds; Lap Race Event, 195.26 seconds, Obstacle Course, 761 seconds and IFR Event, just under three minutes. The Willard team took first place in the relay event and IFR event.
“Limbo” event breaks tie:
The Willard cadets tied for first place with the Mountain Home NJROTC, so to break the tie, the two teams took part in a “limbo” event, where the cadets piloted their drones under a pole set just about three inches off the ground. Higginbotham piloted the drone during the limbo event, which he said gave him “butterflies” in his stomach.
“I was not nervous,” he said, “but I was definitely like, ‘I really don't want to mess this up, because we made it this far’, and it was like I was the one flying so like, ‘Oh please, don't let me mess up.’ I just tried to keep my hands steady and just fly the drone underneath it, and it worked out well.”
The team was awarded plaques for taking first place in the relay and IFR events; Higginbotham and Hopper, the pilots the of drones in those events, respectively, were also awarded their own individual medals for their first-place times. They also received trophy to keep, as well as a traveling trophy which will be handed to next year’s winner.
Drones to see many uses in the future:
Drones, some of the team members said, will probably take the place of soldiers in various types of combat.
“The military’s trying to find out multiple ways on how to keep their own soldiers safe and trying to reduce as many casualties as they can,” Higginbotham said, “and if they have pretty much robots out there … they don't lose a whole lot of lives, or any lives for that matter.”
Drones will also be valuable outside of the military. Costello said he expected drones to be used a great deal in the civilian world.
“There's going to be a whole massive field… for drone pilot technology,” he said.”  “They use them at football games, all kinds of sporting events, concerts (and) geological mapping.”
In the Tiger Newsletter announcing the team’s win, the students were praised not only for their win, but also for their conduct during the competition.
“It's rewarding to take students to compete and see them act with dignity and respect with their fellow competitors,” the newsletter stated. “It’s definitely good to be a Tiger.”

 

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