Thoughts on this STEM project?

[xray328]

http://www.uas4stem.org

It's cool and pretty neat they are focusing on SAR type missions.   Pretty expensive though,  any suggestions on how to pay for it? There's a couple suggestions on the link, any other ideas?

Is it worthwhile?

[Al Sayre]

Looks like this is a good opportunity to combine all three missions and do some recruiting.  I'd contact your Wing AEO and have him/her bump it up to NHQ.

[JC004]

Ouch.  It's on the expensive end. 

[xray328]

Yeah it's very cost prohibitive. I'm betting drones play a bigger role in SAR though in the future.

[Spam]

Cost seems about right. My unit tried this a few years ago, and that was the cost then, cutting corners. There was some interest recently in restarting it to provide an organic (backpack) UAV capability for our GTs to look over a ridgeline, saving us an hour of going up slope to do it first hand, but we've decided to save the cash. (Our unit has 8 GTLs and a lot of qualified manpower, so... cheapskates, we're keeping the cash and spending the sweat and have shelved the UAS).

We found it was an interesting STEM project, though. I had the cadet project officer running it like a mock DoD acquisition effort, with a system requirements document, a TEMP, design reviews, a budget, the whole deal (this was when I was in the weapons systems engineering group on the F-22 program). It was a very useful AE tool, and guess who is now completing his degree in robotics engineering? That former cadet officer, now a 1LT GTL here. Good investment, I'd say, so I'd recommend it based on our similar experience.


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[xray328]

Thanks for the info Spam. My daughters looking at that same thing, hoping she gets accepted to the e-robotics activity out in San Diego next year.  So many opportunities for girls wanting to get involved in engineering.

I messaged our wing AEO to get his thoughts and to look at funding.

Thanks again.

[Al Sayre]

NHQ is getting (USAF?) funding for other STEM kits, maybe they can partner with interested squadrons and allow them to participate at reduced rates...  This is something to talk to Susan Mallett about at the National Conference.

[Spam]

The quadcopters at our unit and our fixed wings have all since been repurposed to other ends, but one of the things I asked the team to consider was a "Pre Planned Product Improvement" plan, or P3I roadmap for continual system development and modernization (similar to how manned aircraft from the B-52 to C-130 to even the F-22 and F-35 are continuously upgraded against the ever changing threats out there).

One of the top things we identified which is far easier and cheaper to do these days is to swap in/out cameras of different bands. You can for example get a pretty good inexpensive lightweight near-IR camera now, which is form/fit/mass/power similar to visual wavelength cameras. Such a sensor would be very useful for certain types of SAR (e.g. the missing person SAR IDd in this competition, which CAP typically isn't well trained for in terms of man tracking, clue conscious or dog team SRUs).  The CONOPS we identified was to leverage CAPs experience with aerospace and robotics to make our ground teams more relevant by far in terms of missing person SAR by the use of these man portable UAVs.

For example, I've seen many well meaning but ignorant CAP ground ops people who honestly believe the right way to do missing person SAR is to flood the woods with bodies and do line searches (to be fair, I saw about 70 or so fire fighters doing the same thing in Connecticut on a mission, in lieu of using dog teams, FLIR helos, etc, where their smoky turnout gear and boots probably obscured all traces of sign and scent left by the girl).  In any event, leveraging our UAV knowledge could turn our CAP GTs from being marginally useful barriers and hasty searchers into actual clue-generating technical specialists through aerospace power (very SMALL aerospace power...).

BTW, I strongly encourage girls to go into engineering. One of my pals in SWE (Society of Women Engineers) jokes that female engineers provide a better knowledge-to-weight ratio than males. You might want to have her check out SWE, they might have youth programs.

On this competition, you'd think CAP cadets would absolutely dominate, even more than cyberpatriot - at least from units that do ES, since many do not.


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