Equipment

Welcome to the Equipment section of our Take Flight Drone Curriculum! Here, you'll find a comprehensive guide to all the essential tools and technology needed to navigate the fascinating world of drones. We've outlined the key pieces of equipment and provided answers to frequently asked questions that will help you safely and effectively pilot your drones. Let's gear up and take to the skies!

Click the document below to access, download, or make a copy.

Do I need special insurance? 

No. The FAA doesn't control or monitor drones if they don't fly outside. You’re also not compelled to register with the FAA if your drone weighs less than half a pound (8.8 ounces) and is flown exclusively under the Exception for Recreational Flyers. The Take Flight drones are truly the equivalent of using a robot in the classroom.

If you need more information, this article talks about drone injuries (2019).  Injuries include children swallowing drone batteries when unattended or inhaling smoke when a drone motorburned out. Additional data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission reveals 9 reported injuries from drones in 2023. All injuries were lacerations from propellers (one guy tripped over a parking cone running away from a drone).

As of mid-March 2023, there were over 1.1 million recreational drones registered with the FAA.  That doesn't include drones that people didn't bother to (or didn't need to) register.

So, your annual likelihood of even being mildly injured by a drone (like, a finger cut) seems to be less than 9 in 1,100,000.

Do I need the FAA 107 certification to use the Take Flight curriculum? 

No. The teachers don’t need FAA 107 certifications because the drones are exclusively flown inside. 

How can I buy more drones? 

Did you know you can spend Perkins V funds all the way down to 5th grade? Your administration may not know this but you can! The Take Flight program is designed to be a Career and Technical Education (CTE) exploratory program. Highlight this with your administrative team or local CTE Director or high school CTE teacher (in aviation, manufacturing, etc) and see if they have CTE funds you can leverage to buy more drones or create a middle school drone competition team. 

How can I create extension project from Take Flight? 

The CoDrones are currently used in the REC Ariel Drone Competition. Many teachers from our pilot group reported starting a competition team and found the Take Flight curriculum to be extremely useful for developing the skills and knowledge they need to compete locally and Nationally. The Technology Student Association (TSA)  -  a registered/official and fundable Career Technology Student Organization (CTSO) - also has local middle school competitions and recently started a drone competition. If you started a middle school TSA you could feed into the high school CTSO and potentially leverage Perkins V funds to buy more drones. 

Use our Organization Padlet below to connect with other teachers and share ideas and tips on how to organize your equipment!