RAVEN Group UAV's named by Upper Lake Melville Students
Thanks to students from the Upper Lake Melville area two UAV’s (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles) belonging to The RAVEN Group have names of their own - The Monarch and Takunnajik (ta-ku-nya-vik). Mrs. Susan Lamonds' Grade 2 Class from Peacock Primary School chose the name Monarch due to the similarities between the butterfly and a UAV – its long-distance flying ability, eyesight range, and use of wind. Mrs. Dawn Sinnotts' Grade 5 Class from Queen of Peace Middle School chose Takunnajik, which in Inuttitut means observer– exactly what UAV's do, regardless of size and capability.
“It is amazing how readily young children understand and accept this kind of technology,” said Pip Rudkin, Manager of UAV Operations at Provincial Aerospace. “The level of research and the way they linked their selected names to the UAV’s were very impressive.”
Both groups affixed their names to the Aerosondes and received trophies for their schools in a ceremony at 5-Wing Goose Bay on May 6th. Thanks are extended to Serco for bussing the winning students to the event.
The RAVEN Project operates a small UAV system as part of their on-going research and development and Mr. Rudkin and Dr. Siu O’Young, Memorial University ’s principal investigator at Project RAVEN were responsible for two outreach initiatives. The second was the high school challenge designed to interest Grades 7 to 12 students in science, technology and engineering. A team from Queen of Peace Middle School under Grade 7 teacher, David Hapgood, and a team from Mud Lake under Principal, Bill Cooper participated. The students submitted mission plans for the Aerosonde UAV specific to Labrador which would employ the Aerosonde’s capabilities.
The winner, Mud Lake School , devised a plan to use the UAV to monitor ice thickness on the “winter road” to Mud Lake , along with surveying the movement of sandbars in the Churchill River in the summer. Ironically, the Mud Lake Team was almost prevented from participating in the award ceremonies due to the break-up of ice in the river - the very thing they wanted to monitor with their UAV plan. Thanks to the generosity of Universal Helicopters, the kids received an extra treat - being flown to the event by helicopter.
“This project related to the local requirement of the Mud Lake community, but the detection of ice thickness and sandbars on rivers and lakes is of interest to many isolated northern communities,” said Dr. O’Young. “The group has a good understanding of UAV capability and what it can do for their community.”
These activities mark the culmination of several weeks of intense effort by representatives of the RAVEN Group. Presentations were made to all participating K-6 classes with students getting hands-on experience with a full scale model of the Aerosonde. Similar sessions took place with the High School Challenge teams to help them understand the capabilities of the Aerosonde so they could design their missions accordingly. The RAVEN team will continue to work with the Mud Lake School team to refine their plan and, if practical, fly the mission from Goose Bay with the Mud Lake School team assisting the RAVEN Project flight team.
Dr. Michael Collins, Memorial University ’s associate vice-president of academics, was in Happy Valley-Goose Bay to represent the university. He brought greetings from the president, Dr. Axel Meisen, to everyone involved in UVS Canada’s UAV Student Competition which took also place May 4-6 in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
“The UVS competition and the RAVEN project’s associated school competitions highlighted the importance of science and technology in today’s society…that RAVEN’s efforts to involve children from all grade levels would encourage students to consider a career in science or technology,” he said.
Dr. Collins sees the RAVEN project as “…an excellent example of a partnership between Memorial University and a private provincial company. The company, in this case Provincial Aerospace Limited, is looking to the future of aerial surveillance, and Memorial has significant research expertise in the whole area of uninhabited vehicle systems (UVS), so the RAVEN project is a natural fit between the two.”
Dr. Collins believes this partnership will help advance the province’s program to implement leading edge technology for the benefit of all its residents.
More than 700 students from the Upper Lake Melville area participated in the RAVEN group’s outreach activities with every student receiving a certificate of participation.