Since 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Education has been using the PAsmart initiative to fund innovative STEM education programs across the state. After a very successful virtual summer camp, consisting of 40 educators and 100 students, PDE committed to CSinPA Build | Fly | Code as one of those projects.

Driven out of the necessities of the pandemic and the exceptional teacher feedback from that camp, PaTTAN, FTW Robotics, and II4T started training the first of what now stands at three cohorts of educators coming from over fifty school districts. Teachers ranging from grades 4-12 and every subject area imaginable are learning to teach their students to build their own classroom drone, the principles of flight and how to fly it, and even more impressively, how to code their drone to fly on its own.

One stellar group in that long list of participants was a group of students that participated in the National Autism Conference Virtual Summer Camp in 2021. Those campers went through Build | Fly | Code virtually with PATTAN, FTW, and II4T supporting throughout the weeklong camp. That week fourteen rockstar students were able to showcase what happens when our kids have the resources to shine. Thank you, PAsmart!