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MeetingsJJJ WILDERNESS RANCH: Zoom meeting at 11:15am EST: Trey$2100/mo + GratuityTriangle C Ranch: 7 am pst/10 am est on Friday, Feb 27Lorri Park: Ranch Manager$1850/mo + GratuityBlack Mountain Ranch: 6pm MST / 8pm EST on Monday, March 2nd15/hr + tips7am - 8pmThatcher May
Do you make a connection between your program and goals?Do you make a connection between your country and your goals?Do you address how this abroad experience will impact your future?
Do you share how you will be academically successful on your program?Do you give examples of your experiences, skills, and knowledge that you will use to adapt, meet program challenges, and succeed abroad?Do you provide specific knowledge and skills that you plan to develop through your experience abroad?
Do you explain how you plan to represent the U.S. and share your own background and experience as a U.S. citizen?Do you discuss the opportunities you will seek to engage in the culture and build meaningful relationships within your host community?
Does your FOSP increase awareness of the Gilman Scholarship AND study abroad? Is your project feasible?Do you give a detailed plan for your project? Do you include your study abroad experience into your project? Do you have an intended audience? Who will you collaborate with to reach this community?
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Weekly Summaries
Jan. 11th-17th
First week of school is always something to look forward to and this one was no exception. All of the classes I’m involved in pertain to my major and align with my specific interests. Some new things that I’m taking on this semester are some technical research projects involving obtaining my thermography certificate and implementing an ozone gas sensor onto a high-altitude drone for an advance flight mission. For this flight mission, the high-altitude drone, arrived and I was able to document it in preparation for future actives. One article that I read last week and it primarily was discussing how impactful this would have on the United States as a whole with DJI being out of the picture. This is mainly due to the fact they are cheaper, more advanced, and more implemented into areas like law enforcement, agriculture, etc. than any other drone manufacturer. To summarize this would greatly diminish the abilities to conduct normal operations within most of these industries if a DJI ban was to proceed. A highlight that ended my week was that I competed in an orienteering race, POCAR, that NO collegiate team has ever finished in the 26 years since its start!!! I competed in it last year and my teams was five points away from finishing but determined this year and with some more preparation we were able to be one of two college teams to EVER finish!! Super proud of my team with the wayfinding techniques, checking bearings, plotting points with a UTM, mental and physical grit, and of course walking 55 miles in sub-zero temperatures! Overall, a really good week and I’m really excited to see how this semester progresses!
Jan. 18th-24th
With the second week of school on wraps, I’m really excited to see what the rest of the semester looks like! Some of the interesting articles that I dove into this week was , which was about the purpose what Black Boxes and what they may look like in the future. Another one that I read was, which was about the millions of dollars that are being spent on counter drone and drone security. This is mainly for the FIFA 2026 event and America’s 250th celebration. The final article that I read this week was and the benefits of utilizing simulators for the intent of becoming proficient in flying a UAS prior to flying the real thing with increased risk. The main point outlined in the article was that this was important being the control for a fixed wing especially isn’t intuitive and will need to be practiced! I’ve also been starting my thermography research and have been trying to determine different methods of which to separate GCP’s from surrounding objects when scanning. I’m excited to continue this research and investigate more options that could be revolutionary. One final from this week was all the cold weather and snow! This sure has been interesting to see the weather charts firsthand and understand more of what the effects were that caused something like this to occur.
Jan. 25th-31st
To be honest it’s kind of nuts that we’re done with our third week of school already! Still really cold but I’m actually really enjoying the opportunities to go sledding on Slayter with friends! Also have had opportunities to sit in on some Glee Club rehearsals with Hunter Hall and let me tell you that man has some pipes!!! I’m also really excited to start ground testing on the Believers soon because I probably spent around 10 hours this week soldering and assembling our groups. Learning a lot of techniques of how to better solder connections and also a lot of ways not to! Very valuable time spent in that regard, but I’m more excited to see what the future holds for me in research and development. An article that I read this week was , which is basically covering a new aspect within the drone industry that is opening up for new development and job opportunities! This is specifically tailored for the Coast Guard but honestly can see it potentially migrating to other fields as well! Another article that I touched on this week was covering new weather drone, , and very interesting for sure! A company like this, in my opinion, is on the right track because this utilization of drones in this way will save money on radiosondes and produce more accurate weather data as well because you can specifically control the assent and descent. Some new software skills that I’ve been learning in ArcGIS Pro is how to Georeferencing and Topology. If someone is going into the Civil industry or a marketing field, these skills will be ‘gold’ for them! I’m really excited to see what is going to happen this upcoming month after seeing how far we’ve come already!
Feb. 1st-7th
Good news! We are finally starting to get warmer weather! Starting off this week, we read two articles from different drone companies commercially available products. The two companies were ZenaTech and Reactive drones, and the main interesting point that I took away that it’s not necessarily that we are getting better drones as some companies are just trying to catch back up with DJI. From a price standpoint especially this is going to be very interesting in the near future. We also read, or some of us, read a scientific report regarding drone flyability in different environments. These conditions pretain to wind speed, temperature, and humidity. They also threw in that if you are in an arid climate with lots of dust particles this also plays a huge role but it’s very hard to measure dust particles in general so it wasn’t really touched on. Overall, it was a very interesting article and it’s going to be interesting to see what drone manufacturers take from it and implement into their own product lines. Some personal events that I participated in was a Winter Jam concert where Mathew West, Chris Tomlin, and Katy Nicole performed! I also watched the super bowl with friends and enjoyed the time spent with them and excited to see what other opportunities this semester we might have! Finally, I’ve also been really looking into summer internships this summer and have been in contact with Meteomatics in Switzerland. That opportunity fell through but it was really fun almost getting the opportunity to go over there and experiencing a different side of the drone industry. Still on the lookout and might have more opportunities on the radar so I’m pretty excited!
Feb. 8th-14th
This week was honestly really fun with different class activities and equestrian competitions! Some of the articles that we covered this week were based on how technology is being implemented into drones to make a difference within the industry. For example, talks about how drones can measure waves and extrapolate that data into something that can be studied and monitored. To go one step further, talks about different standards for collision avoidance to allow them to complete more advanced flight missions that could be conducted BVLOS. Believers we are getting taped and our build was completely done except for weight and balance that we are going to complete next week. The most enjoyable thing by far this week was definitely competing with my equestrian friends at Taylor College. Both days everyone had really good rides and I ended up winning in my division for Sunday’s event! This was also on a horse that was known for bucking people off so I’m so glad I made it look like we were gliding across the arena.
Feb. 15th-21st
This week was overall a really productive week! To start off we dove into an article that was about a military solution for dropping drones in the air with using microwave rays from the ground. The article, also goes into how they want to find a solution that is lighter and is less expensive that can be set up at moment's notice. My team and I finished the weight and balance, and we were all really impressed that everything that we located in the aircraft was just about where it needed to be for the predetermined Datums. Now this being a productive week you might be wondering what I did that deserves this kind of recognition. Well, I probably spent around 30ish hours strictly on sending out internship interest applications to countless businesses across the world in hopes of landing one prior to summer. I’ve gotten a couple back, but they no longer have positions open. Note though that this isn’t my first week sending applications out, but this was definitely one of my heavier lifting weeks in a while. Have had a couple interviews and now I’m just waiting to hear back.
Feb. 22nd-28th
This week was full of surprises to say the least! Started off with taking videos of me riding horses and ended with me going and supporting my equestrian friends at the Regional Competition. I also had 3 important meetings this week with one concerning the upper atmosphere gas scanning drone and the other two being interviews for summer jobs. The Aurelia Drone consultation was pretty informative and nothing new, but now that we’ve gone to that we can proceed with the design of the apparatus! The interviews went well and I’m excited to hear back from the companies in the different avenues that might be potentials for this summer! Enough about fun extracurricular things, so let’s get back to the articles we read and discussed in class. The first article,
, covered the drones in the Olympics and how they are set up to create a sense of connectivity to the event from the viewers perspective! The second article, , was over the military going for smaller drone platforms that larger due to the cost and ease of training flight pilots. This lowers costs significantly and will more greatly enhance the ability to respond quick to a threat.March 1st-7th
This past week has been filled with events of hanging out with others, to being super productive in schoolwork, and then also preparing for spring break. This week we’ve started creating missions in Ground control and then implementing them into X-plane. We’ve also continued to improve our technical conversation skills when passing over controls and signaling to the GCS operator of our intent. I’m really excited to start mission planning for the believer and begin the processes of flying them because of how much work we’ve put into them. This week I also created a lesson plan covering the ASREC FAA Alt. Waiver that tests the comprehension of it because the Responsible Person, me, is responsible for having some way of justifying to the FAA that the operators operating under the waiver understand everything. The article that we covered this week in class was over a. This man flew over a military installation and was pressed for charges for this action. It’s definitely going to be interesting how the FAA and gov’t pursue stuff like this in the future, with maybe even doubling down on regulations. For example, just like guns are great tools, in the wrong hands they can be abused like drones are right now. One final thing to end the week was that I had a couple more interviews for potential ranches to work at this summer and I accepted an offer! I’m super excited to see what God has in store this summer! One more week until Spring Break, and I’m so excited!
March 8th-14th
To Do:
Gilman ScholarShip Essays
Essay #1: Motivations: - 500 Word Limit
Essay #2 Knowledge and Skill Development: - 500 Word Limit
Essay #3 Citizen Diplomat: - 500 Word Limit
Essay #4 Project Proposal: - 500 Word Limit
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