03/02/2026
The Aerospace Career Academy was honored to welcome the Cocoa High School AJROTC Journey of Flight team “Drone Crashers” to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to present their incredible Drone 3D Mapping Project!
This group of first-year Journey of Flight students went above and beyond this school year by taking on a real-world UAS mapping mission. With the mentorship of Dr. Jeoffrey Bispham and the ACA UAS team, students conducted photogrammetry flights using the Parrot Anafi Ai UAV to aerially map Cocoa High School’s 54-acre campus.
Over the course of the project, the team captured more than 6,200 images across 101 total project hours, mapping 21.4 acres of their campus with 87% image alignment accuracy. Imagery was processed by the team in Pix4Dmatic, exported through Blender and slicer software, and ultimately transformed into detailed 3D printed models produced in their school’s computer science lab.
From manual flight operations to autonomous mission planning, log documentation, emergency response planning, and advanced 3D modeling workflows, these students demonstrated teamwork, problem-solving, and technical skill at an impressive level, all while maintaining a record of zero crashes.
After their presentations, students toured our campus and lab spaces, getting a firsthand look at the next step in their aerospace journey.
We are especially excited that Cocoa High School will begin offering dual enrollment aerospace courses in the 2026–2027 school year, allowing these students to continue building their aviation and UAS expertise.
The future of aerospace is bright, and it’s already taking flight in Cocoa! 🚀
