Germanna launching drone training for commercial applications

Michael Zitz

Director of Media & Community Relations

Germanna Community College

540/846-5163

mzbeckham@germanna.edu

Ben Sherman

Business & Career Coordinator

Germanna Community College

540/937-2901 (office)

540/661-8291 (cell)

bsherman@germanna.edu

GERMANNA CENTER FOR WORKFORCE  LAUNCHING COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS DRONE TRAINING AT GCC DANIEL TECH CENTER IN CULPEPER

Business drone use is a trend that isn’t likely to fade away. Current commercial uses for unmanned aerial vehicles include the monitoring of agricultural crops, photographing real estate and managing wildlife. Among those in the works are Amazon’s plans to use drones for deliveries. There has also been discussion of using solar-powered drones capable of remaining aloft indefinitely to beam WiFi signals to the ground to provide sparsely populated areas with Internet access.

A drone in flight during a demonstration outside
 Germanna's Daniel Technology Center in  Culpeper.

According to Fortune magazine, by July of 2015, there were over 500 businesses in the U.S. cleared by the FAA to operate drones for commercial purposes.

An industry study recently predicted that by the year 2025, the commercial use of drones could add $82 billion and 100,000 jobs to the U.S. economy.

Locally, Germanna Community College will begin using drone flyovers to help Cedar Mountain Stone monitor progress at its Mitchells Quarry. The first flyover, on a date yet to be determined in late October, will take place during a blast at the quarry.

According to Ben Sherman, a Germanna Center for Workforce Business & Career Coordinator based at the GCC Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper, the drones will be doing aerial photography for photogrammetry and using two-dimensional photos to make a 3D point cloud to model progress at the quarry. The goal will be to determine the amount of stone removed. This will allow Cedar Mountain Corporation to more closely monitor the amount of material being extracted from and ultimately sold by the quarry.

This will be part of a new Germanna Community College Center for Workforce program at the Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper focusing on drone training for commercial applications.

Students will learn how to maintain drones and how the actual programming works—how to download information and process it, as well as the necessary flying skills, Sherman said.

The FAA is expected to require increasing levels of training and certification for those who fly drones for commercial use to earn certification, due to safety concerns.

Germanna had already been providing classes primarily for drone hobbyists, including basic flight training and even teaching middle school children to build their own drones using a 3D printer.

“Now we’re going into business and construction applications,” Sherman said.

He said Germanna’s Center for Workforce is prepared to help local businesses navigate evolving  federal and state drone regulations.

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Germanna Today: The Art of Mystery Writing, Cory MacLauchlin on his John Kennedy Toole bio, Ben Sherman on Workforce programs

Germanna Today guests include award-winning author Howard Owen on his new Mystery Writing course at Germanna, Cory MacLauchlin, author of the John Kennedy Toole biography "Butterfly in the Typewriter," and Ben Sherman on Workforce programs.

GCC President David A. Sam and speech instructor Shelly Palomino co-host the Germanna Today cable TV show.

 Owen, the award-winning author of 10 published novels, teaches "A Mystery to Me: The Art of Mystery Writing," a three-day, 7-pm-9pm evening class Feb. 5, Feb. 12 and Feb. 19 at Germanna's Fredericksburg Area Campus for $69.
Including the recently released and highly acclaimed mystery novel, "Oregon Hill," Owen draws on his 23 years of experience writing fiction to help students learn the art of mystery writing.
He will address such disparate subjects as finding the time to write, plotting, dialogue, character development, descriptive writing, writing with humor as well as editing and rewriting. Students will write at least one mystery short story, which will gently critiqued at the end of the course. To register, call 540/891-3012.
  Click HERE to view the program.

'Something almost magical' about GCC Center for Workforce & Community Education Video Game Maker class for grade schoolers

BY LIANA BAYNE

The Free Lance-Star

Something almost magical happened.

After about an hour of struggling, an army of Pac-Men suddenly raced across 14 computer screens. Their arrival was heralded by joyous shouts.

"It's going through my maze!" the budding software programmers exclaimed.

And just like that, 14 young brains had learned how to make magic in the form of a basic video game.

The 14 students, who ranged from first-graders to eighth-graders, were participating in the new Video Game Maker class at the Riverside Center of  Germanna Community College.

Their instructor, Ben Sherman, is a retired mechanical engineer who got bored and rejoined the workforce as a business and career coordinator for Germanna. He hopes the class will inspire his students to explore engineering, math or science.

"I love to have kids involved with things like this," he said. "We need more engineers and mathematicians."

The four-day camp met every day last week, Monday through Thursday, from 9 a.m. until noon each day. The students moved from learning what a pixel is toward more advanced game-creation functions. On the third day of camp, they learned about making maze-style games like Pac-Man.
Free Lance-Star story: 

Rising first- to sixth-graders are learning to design video games through Germanna's Center for Workforce & Community Education. The class, and Legos Engineering classes including Collision Cars, will be offered at the GCC Daniel Center in Culpeper in July and August. The classes are intended to stimulate interest in science, engineering, technology and math (STEM) at an early age
. 

Video Game Maker class information: http://www.germanna.edu/workforce/documents/video_gaming.pdf. Legos Engineering: Lego Engineering classes information: http://www.germanna.edu/workforce/documents/lego_engineering.pdf