MARSHALL – The Lyon County 4-H hosted a drone program for youths in grades fifth through eighth to teach skills in repair, coding and navigating drones with a first person camera.

The program involved four days of practice. Monday included learning about different types of drones and how to properly fly them. Tuesday and Wednesday had students coding, and Thursday concluded with 4-H staff teaching the student how to use a first-person drone camera.

Gorden Lancaster Clark said he loves coding and seeing how the drone would react.

“It’s insane,” said Clark. “I put the things (code) in, and then the drone will do flips.”

The drone activity is part of 4-H’s Beyond Ready program, which – according to their website – exists to help youths develop new and useful work skills that employers might be looking for.

“We want to prepare youth for what’s beyond and keep them ready for the future,” said Sam Jens, an Extension educator for 4-H Lyon County.

According to Jens, skills in operating drones will be useful a variety of jobs, including the military, hunting and even real estate for wide shots of houses and inside views.

“Using drone technology is an emerging field, and it’s just gonna become more popular,” said Jens. “There’s everything from military aspects of it all the way to personal aspects of just taking pictures, there’s a lot of career opportunities.”

Working with drones isn’t the only activity the 4-H team has planned for the summer. On June 29, 4-H will offer a create your own video game program where youths in grades first through fifth can learn to design and play their own video games. On July 13, 4-H will offer “RoboQuest” challenges, where grades fourth through 12th can learn coding and engineering robots.

According to Blake Louwagie, an intern at 4-H, the Lyon County branch is also always working on their bi-monthly project kits, which 4-H members can receive for free to develop skills in STEM inside their own home.