{"id":88,"date":"2015-04-20T09:58:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T14:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maryville.edu\/mpress\/?p=88"},"modified":"2018-12-18T14:12:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T20:12:56","slug":"its-a-bird-its-a-plane-its-a-drone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maryville.edu\/mpress\/its-a-bird-its-a-plane-its-a-drone\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a Bird \u2026 It\u2019s a Plane \u2026 It\u2019s a Drone!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If not airplanes, most flying objects over Maryville\u2019s quad are Canada geese, but nowadays you might just as easily be observing \u201cthe Spirit of Saint Louie\u201d\u2014a drone named after Maryville\u2019s mascot, Louie, and the Saints athletics teams. The drone arrived this spring and will be used as lab equipment for fieldwork in the cyber security academic program.<\/p>\n

The UAV has practical as well as academic applications. It can be used to monitor for open parking spaces, capture aerial photographs of campus, and to create interior and exterior videos of buildings and facilities, which would then be used for virtual tours of Maryville.<\/p>\n

A second drone, unnamed, has been deployed through the Art & Design program for more than a year. \u201cIt was used last summer to map Greek architecture in central Greece and will be used again with students as we continue our work in Greece this summer,\u201d says Todd Brenningmeyer, PhD, director of the art history program and associate professor.<\/p>\n

Students also used the UAV as part of a geographic information system (GIS) class and some students incorporated the drone into their final projects, mapping topography and vegetation at Shaw Nature Reserve, an extension of the Missouri Botanical Garden.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrones give students the opportunity to engage with technologies that are changing the way we approach a whole variety of tasks,\u201d Brenningmeyer says.<\/p>\n

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