Reported by Jinho Park
The 2024 Interstate Drone League (iDrone) youth camp took place virtually via Zoom from May 26th to 29th, 2024. This camp featured informal STEM learning modules, including drone building, coding, and poster presentation to experience fast-moving technologies, such as unmanned aerial systems (UAS), commonly known as drones. Throughout the camp, students had the opportunity to build their own drones from scratch, learn about motor control, and stabilize drones for safe and legal flight in the national airspace. Additionally, students collaborated in teams of 4 to 5, brainstorming how emerging technologies, such as drones, ground robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) can address real-world problems and exchange their knowledge and thoughts among peers for potential technical solutions.
On the first day of camp, chair Dr. Jae Ryu introduced the 52nd President of KSEA, Dr. Yongho Sohn, welcoming all participants and Jules Lee, a NASA Scientist, broadcasting a seminar on exploring Mars. For Day 1 hands-on STEM activities, students constructed their own drones using the iDrone development kit that was delivered to their home. Throughout the drone building activity, students learned the various components comprising a drone, including propellers, motors, body frame, circuit board, and accessories and understood how they work.
The following day began with an invited talk by Kenny Lee, the co-founder/CEO of Aigen. He introduced how drones can be utilized in AI-driven, network-connected robotic service. It was a great opportunity for students to learn about drone applications in agriculture. Next, students learned coding and programming using Arduino IDE and MIT Scratch. Through this module, students learned the basic coding step by step by completing a series of questions.
On Day 3, students took on the coding challenge. Through the coding challenge, students practiced their knowledge of coding from this camp. Students create their own coding, successfully completing one of the NASA missions (e.g., Ingenuity Mars Helicopter) by controlling their drone as following the instructions. Following that, students collaborated in groups to brainstorm real-world problems that could be addressed using drones in order to inspire practical applications of this technology. Each team shared their ideas during the team poster pitch.
On the last day, students showcased their posters with drone-based technical solutions to real-world problems. Among 18 teams, three finalists were selected. These chosen teams are invited to UKC2024 as poster presenters with the assistance of assigned mentors.
| 1st Place | |
| Team 4 | Anna Suh (11th grade) Daniel Cho (10th grade) Jayden Yang (10th grade) Kathryn Jung (11th grade) Myung Lee (11th grade) |
| 2nd Place | |
| Team 17 | Chris Jong Lee (10th grade) Ethan Chung (11th grade) Hyunmin Kim (10th grade) William Kim (10th grade) |
| 3rd Place | |
| Team 2 | Aaron Son (10th grade) Alice Shin (10th grade) Matthew Han (11th grade) Michelle Kim(11th grade) Rachel Lee (11th grade) |
Team 4’s poster 
Team 17’s poster 
Team 2’s poster
The 2024 iDrone camp was a big success. Throughout the iDrone camp, students have gained not only the understanding of drone technology but also developed teamwork, problem-solving, and critical thinking. We hope the experience will continue to inspire the youth.
Special thanks to iDrone Coordinators (Alphabetic order by last name): Choi, Hadassah; Choi, Hyunheung; Hsieh, Michael; Kim, Gloria; Kim, Kyowon; Kim, Sunghyun; Kim, Taehun; Park, Jeongwon; Park, Jinho; Park, Katie; Sung, Kevin; Son, Yeongkwon; Song, Joohyung; Lee, Ahreum; Lee, Jay; Lee, Jungwoo; Lee, Kevin; Yoo, Yungjun.
KSEA e-Letters 