As a farm management education instructor at Dakota College at Bottineau, Linda Burbidge is well versed in how drones are used to monitor crops, livestock, and irrigation systems.

As the principal investigator of the Advanced Technological Education-funded Development of a Stackable Certificate Program for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) Technicians project (Award 224777), Burbidge is exploring how these small aircraft also known as drones can be leveraged for economic development in rural communities.

Kita Montejo (center) learns about remote control functions and programmable flight settings from IT Specialist Jo Leader (left) and Natural Resources Instructor Michelle Cauley.

The 24-credit Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems certificate program she developed with colleagues and a business industry leadership team stacks with the North Dakota college’s associate degrees in agriculture, business, horticulture, forestry, natural resources, wildlife, and fisheries.

“We wanted to make sure students knew they had this option to have that as an add-on to their two-year degrees,” she said.

With the certificate’s launch in the fall—with four new courses added to the four drone-related courses the college has offered for several years—students will have the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skills to take the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) exam that is required to become a certificated operator of uncrewed aircraft.

Burbidge is also striving “to help support the workforce in North Dakota” with noncredit learning opportunities. Those activities began with the project’s first sUAS Industry Boot Camp this spring.

During the capstone presentations by the boot camp participants, Burbidge learned of two uses for drones that were new to her: inspecting radio station towers and checking park facility improvements that had been funded by government grants. From her teaching and experience as a sUAS pilot and instructor, Burbidge was aware of drones being used in the region for dam inspections, biology research, and agribusinesses.

“I really think there's a lot of different directions we can go, so this is one of the things we're going to be working on next, is where do we want to take it?” Burbidge said.

The boot camp participants report that the lessons that began online in April and concluded in May with two days of in-person, hands-on workshops expanded their thinking about how they can use drones in their careers. One participant is even planning to launch his own business centered on drones. 

Boot Camp Helps Solidify New Business Plan 

Rick Gustafson, the market manager for the Hometown Radio Group, enrolled in the boot camp to gather information about the potential to use drones to inspect radio towers. He currently operates drones recreationally and is taking online courses to prepare for the FAA Part 107 exam. Passing that test leads to the license that is required to operate drones for commercial purposes.

He wrote the following in an email:

“The drone boot camp facilitated by Dakota College at Bottineau was an amazing learning experience in that information was provided that focused completely to [the] subject, yet let those enrolled to explore other aspects of drones and drone uses that many of us had not thought of...

“The information garnered at the workshop involved other aspects of drone usage that I had not considered, including obtaining waivers for towers above certain heights. (Drones are only allowed up to 400 feet above ground level in everyday usage). For towers above that height, a waiver is needed.

“And, although I have been flying for some time, the drills and skill exercises were very helpful in learning to control an aircraft around obstacles that are abundant near and on a radio tower.

 “The workshop was instrumental in helping me feel empowered to approach the next level of operation and ownership of drones and their usage in a tower maintenance program. This is not only an advantage for the company I work for, it also can be an extra personal revenue stream by inspecting other companies’ towers in the evenings and weekends....

Principal Investigator Linda Burbidge (standing) monitors the repair work on a drone. Boot camp participants are Susan Tratebas (left), Rick Gustafson (center) and Char Langehaug (right).  

“A drone tower inspection would allow a non-invasive approach to viewing and diagnosing any possible or existing deficiencies in the tower structure or antenna electrical connections or physical abnormalities in the radiating arms and heaters. The mission could conceivably find any problems in one inspection flight or even two, if that was warranted and still be immensely less expensive and time consuming than even one manned tower climb.”

He explained that tower inspections are usually done by crews based in large cities. Their travel to remote places adds to the high cost of hiring people first to climb towers to see what needs to be adjusted, repaired, or replaced, and then return to the tower when the parts arrive to make the necessary modifications. Because of the time involved in traveling to rural towns, like Minot where the Hometown Radio Group operates three stations, tower inspectors typically wait until they have multiple jobs in a region to make inspection and repair trips.     

Parks & Recreation Personnel Plan to Expand Their Use of Drones

The video the Char L. Langehaug created for her capstone report—The Heart of the City: How a Pavilion Brings a Community Together—shows how she uses the aerial photography taken with drones for social media videos that publicize public park upgrades.

Langehaug, the grants coordinator for North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department, attended the boot camp with two colleagues. Based on what they learned, they are going to use drones for more holistic inspections of grant-funded projects, particularly new and restored trails in remote areas.

“Right now, we are conducting manual inspection projects, but we are unable to check an entire site, or the inspection will take a long time to conduct comprehensively. A drone tremendously saves time [and] money,” she wrote in an email.

The other ways she and her colleagues hope to use drones in the future include filming special events at the state’s 14 parks, inspecting buildings, and mapping trails.

To see how the department incorporates drone videos in its social media go to the department’s YouTube series Miles and Moments: Partnering with Communities through Grants.

College Student Recommends Boot Camp

Kita Montejo, a natural resources major at Dakota College at Bottineau, would like to use drones to assist with wetland delineation and to document the spread of invasive plant species.

Because it is a non-credit adult education offering, the sUAS Industry Boot Camp does not count toward her associate degree. Nevertheless, Montejo wrote in an email that she would “absolutely” recommend it.

“Learning from Linda [Burbidge], Michelle [Cauley] and Jo [Leader] is an experience that you will appreciate so much. They are intelligent, articulate women that make the Boot Camp fun, interesting and valuable. Actually I would recommend taking any boot camp or educational course from them. They are gems in the education field!

“You learn basic pilot skills, drone ‘anatomy’ (hardware) software, and repair as well as potential and actual uses for these fun machines,” she wrote.

Michelle Cauley is a natural resources instructor at the college who led several boot camp sessions. Josephine “Jo” Leader is an information technology specialist and adjunct instructor at the college who taught the drone care and maintenance lessons at the boot camp.

Burbridge said the ATE project has led to IT faculty experimenting with building drone replacement parts on the college’s 3-D printers and photography faculty looking at adding a drone photograph course.

These crossovers “are a nice offshoot” of the grant, she said.