Staff photo / Bob Coupland Caleb Knipp, left, and Vance Kinnick of Jackson-Milton High School are members of the aerial drone team at the Mahoning County Career & Technical Center, which competed in the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation Aerial Drone Program. The team was among teams from Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton that competed Saturday at MCCTC.

CANFIELD — High school students had the opportunity to showcase their drone-flying skills at a competition Saturday at the Mahoning County Career& Technical Center.

Local teams were joined by teams from Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton at the event, which is sponsored by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation Aerial Drone Program.

The MCCTC aerial drone team included Caleb Knipp, a senior, and Vance Kinnick, a junior, both from Jackson-Milton High School. The third team member is junior Andrew Morris.

Kinnick said the MCCTC has had a drone team for the past four years. He said to score points, the drone has to take small foam balls and place them in scoring zones and clear the drop zones of any foam balls. The drone also can score points by landing on designated zones on a playing field within a specified amount of time.

Kinnick said the three team members also have been active with the robotics program and feel the drones are a part of that.

“Drones can be fun and also provide an opportunity for them to be used to make money,” Kinnick said.

Knipp said he started in VEX Robotics and then decided to join an aerial drone competition team.

“I have my license for flying a drone commercially. I thought the drone competition would be fun, so I joined last year,” Knipp said.

Kinnick said the drone competition allows for meeting new people at different events.

Knipp said the team earned second place in the alliance for matches and placed in the middle for the skills score. He said the teams compete at the local event and then compete at the regional event.

Kinnick said aerial drone competitions have become more common in the past four years, while robotics has been around for 25 to 30 years.

“The drones are progressing and more and more schools have drone classes or programs. Years ago, drones were very simple and now they all have really advanced cameras and auto stabilizing,” he said.

Kinnick said the competitions allow the players to showcase their skills in getting the drones to score points and complete the tasks. The MCCTC teams led by Walter Baber and Rachel Naylor.

Baber said drone competitions are starting to get the attention now that robotics competitions have had for many years.

“We started the robotics program 15 years ago here, but most of the competitions were three to four hours away. We then were able to get more local competitions, which is what we are trying to do with the drones. This the third year we have been competing with drones,” Baber said

He said the regional event is at Kettering University in Michigan and includes students from 10 states and three Canadian provinces. Baber said the first year the team competed, they took second place at the regional event.

Emma Repula is a former team member from Austintown who returned this year as a referee for the local event.

“I was the one who wanted to have a drone program here and got them interested in starting one. I was in the program the first year. I think for any student, learning to fly a drone is a good experience because of all the engineering and surveying involved to build and program a drone. Drones today have so much technology. Just knowing how to fly and operate a drone can help someone really get ahead in many different fields,” Repula said.