The success of a project comes down to the coming together of several factors
- staff with the interest and skills etc to see it through, there is little point in doing something that staff have no interest or skill/knowledge to make it interesting for them and the cadets
- sit staff and cadets to sit down and discuss what they might like to do to try and avoid the almost inevitable loss of interest. One of the most successful was making ‘posters’ for the hut, but we had a member of the committee with access to a printer at work that could do up to A2 in colour.
- if going down the practical route, make sure the cadets can learn practical skills that may have some use down the line. Our son and daughter have both been baptised in the art of DIY and using tools, helping us with things from early on. A few tears, bashed fingers and knowledge of choice phrases associated with DIY, but hopefully mum and dad can just be supervisors / advisers in the future.
- quick ‘wins’ in terms of seeing a result, even a small sections of a larger project. Too long between parts and interest gets lost. The poster project worked better on this score as the cadets saw their efforts on display.
Although it shouldn’t be a massive factor financing of it has to be considered. Will you need to buy materials, tools etc, do staff have the tools they can bring in. We’ve got a number of hand tools on the sqn that we’ve bought or had given to us.
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[quote=“Expired, post:14, topic:2492, full:true”]I’m thinking of using a Raspberry Pi and Sense Hat to demonstrate pitch, roll and yaw. The Sense Hat’s pressure sensor can be used to teach the cadets about altimeters. The output is displayed rather conveniently in mb, so I should be able to show them that air pressure decreases at around 1 millibar (hopefully post-Brexit we’ll see the back of hectoPascals) for every 27 ft increase in altitude.
I have my own Pi3 and Sense Hat. Very easy (and cheap) to get started. Most cadets should know enough programming from school to be able to work on the project unsupervised.
There must be loads of other cadet related Pi projects that they can build.[/quote]
I wouldn’t assume too much about what cadets might do at school and bringing it to the ATC.
I don’t get involved in IT at work other than moaning when it doesn’t work! But I don’t think you’d find your idea would get much if any take up, without your input to the point where you do it all. Then there is the longevity, will it be one of those things that sits in a cupboard or shelf in the store, if you leave or aren’t there. You may get some initial interest from maybe one or at best two cadets and unless you have some coming through who are ‘into’ programming (regardless of the fact they do it at school) it in all likelihood be short-lived. You’d have though cadets would be well versed in using basic Office software, but you don’t see it very much at the sqn. An old fart like me seems to have higher skill levels than the vast majority of cadets brought up on them.
I know for a fact they cover a number of areas in maths, geography and physics we do in classification training, but you would never know it when you take a class at the sqn. I’ve watched cadets doing the canteen reconciliation and it seems even the most basic of mathematical functions are repeatedly forgotten between school and squadron. One of the biggest moans you hear from teachers is that the pupils don’t see the cross-over between subjects, so it doesn’t surprise me they don’t see it elsewhere.
This doesn’t include the more oblique skills acquired in art and '“DT” and some school clubs.
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I think you need to check out CAA first to see if there are any height and distance restrictions if you are flying any drones, including any policies/laws on the use of image using devices etc, including drone training as well.
Even if you have a small helicopter flying indoors you need insurance so without going into the technicalities of caa type regs ANY flying of rc requires the club membership