3D Robotics Brings Drones to School With 3DU Sponsorship Program

On Tuesday, 3D Robotics, one of the drone industry’s largest players, announced a new initiative to bring consumer drones into classrooms across the country. Dubbed 3DU, the new program will make hardware discounts and sponsorship and support deals available to schools from K-12 to postgraduate levels.

“In the past, drone research and education was limited to aerospace or engineering departments,” 3DR  CEO Chris Anderson said in a statement. “We’re seeing massive adoption of our drone platforms in education. The diversity and creativity of these programs is astonishing, from archaeology to cinematography to precision farming.”

Despite being known for manufacturing the IRIS and Solo drones, 3D Robotics has always recognized apps for drones are going to be as (if not more) important to the future of UAV technology.

You can read our review of the 3DR Solo right here.

3DR wants to introduce the company’s SDK, DroneKit to today’s students and make drone app development as accessible as possible.

In addition to providing schools with a 15% discount on the Solo and other hardware and sponsorship opportunities for clubs and competitions, 3DR is offering schools a chance to work with the company to develop curriculums, webinars, and virtual visits.

[cms id=”51451″]

Already 3DR has partnerships with Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

On top of all this, 3DR announce a partnership with Cambridge, MA-based Pantopes, the manufacturers of the eBumper sense and avoid system for consumer drones. Panoptes will be offering similar discounts to its products which, for now, only covers 3DR’s IRIS platform.

We have had some hands-on time with the Panoptes eBumper and it really blew us away. Read more about it right here.