Summer camp teaches children to build, fly drones

SAN ANTONIO – A unique summer camp at North East Independent School District is hoping to inspire the next generation of engineers and computer programmers. 

A two-week drone camp is teaching students to build, program and fly their own drones.

“It's not just about the building of the drone, the engineering of the drones, but it's also about the electrical engineering piece of it. It's about the programming piece of it, and it's really fun when you see them actually start to fly across the room,” said Debi Pfitzenmaier, founder and CEO of Youth Code Jam. “Our real goal is to get kids interested in coding and programming and computer science, to build their confidence in that skill set, and then to show them what the jobs of the future look like.”

Pfitzenmaier said the Youth Code Jam program started five years ago, and at the time, there was almost nowhere for children to go to learn to code. She said the hope is for it to prepare students for college, the workforce and their future careers.