Amityville Memorial High School students Darius Mobley Jr. and Z’Dhanne Williams recently presented their research project at the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair held at Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury. Their topic was, “Are autonomous drones more efficient than human programmed drones in rescue missions?”

After conducting extensive research on present-day drone usage, Darius and Z’Dhanne conducted their own study comparing flight times of autonomous drones with the flight times of drones driven by human operators. With help from fellow robotics club members Raiphy Jerez and Trae’von Smith, they concluded that while the autonomous drones had a faster flight time by 15 seconds on average compared to human programmed drones, they lacked responsiveness and were more likely to have disrupted flight due to lapse time in communication with the computer server. The students set up an obstacle course in the cafeteria to conduct their study.