With drones in the upper corners holding the red ribbon, the ribbon has just been cut at Curiosity Lab is about to take place! From left are Jan Geldmacher, president Sprint Business; Paul Powers, president and CEO of Georgia Power; Wayne Hodges, member of Pendleton Group; Ann Purcell, GDOT Commissioner; City Councilmembers Phil Sadd, Erick Christ and Alex Wright; Mayor Mike Mason; Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; City Councilmembers Jeanne Aulbach and Lorri Christopher; Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; Councilmember Weare Gratwick; John F. King, State Insurance Commissioner; and Brian Johnson, city manager.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
SEPT. 13, 2019 | Ribbon cutting will never be the same again after Wednesday’s official opening of Curiosity Lab’s new activities in Peachtree Corners. Four students from Paul Duke STEM High School changed the way ribbons cuttings are held, as they guided two drones through the skies, holdings ends of a red ribbon, as city and Curiosity Lab officials snipped the ribbon signaling the start of the nation’s first 5G-powered smart city technology proving ground on Technology Parkway.
The student team with the drones were Pilots Smit Patel, a senior, and Josh Taylor a sophomore. On the ground guiding the drones as spotters were William Tomsik and Noah Budnitz, both sophomores. All are members of the Drone Club, guided by Lee Conger of Tucker, who is the school technologist, helping other teachers use technology better ways in instructing their students.
Conger is a former English teacher, a UGA grad, who is a native of Bainbridge in south Georgia. He says of the Wednesday event: “These students are bright, motivated, and truly special. I’m happy to report our part of the event was pretty perfect, but there was much more work to prepare for it than we originally anticipated. It so happens that it’s fairly difficult to fly a flimsy piece of ribbon without it getting caught in some propellers.””
The Drone Club has about 25 students in it, with a smaller group of a half dozen students with basic experience leading the activities. Already the Club has done drone photography for other schools with its experienced students. Conger says: “We are out there helping other schools when called upon.”
Drone team members are Josh Taylor, Smith Patel, William Tomsik and Noah Budnitz.
Peachtree Corners Mayor Mike Mason, other city officials and those from Curiosity Lab were smiling Monday as the Lab officially began activities. For the past few months, the roadway of Technology Park has been busy with renovations for the Curiosity experiments. Soon a variety of companies are expected to use the 1.5 mile autonomous test track with a variety of self-driving vehicles, robots, shuttles, teleoperated e-scooters and even autonomous lawnmowers. Major companies, like Kia and Mercedes-Benz, have an interest in using the test track in implementing their own experiments.
The site is next generation connectivity in testing operations in real-world conditions. It is the nation’s first 5G-powered smart city technology proving ground, and is attracting attention from many companies, even including Delta Air Lines, which sees potential for testing driverless vehicles connecting airport operations with airplanes, in moving baggage around, for example.
The unusual ribbon cutting in Peachtree Corners came during the three-day Smart City Expo, going on this week in Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center. This is the first year that the Expo has been held in the United States. Normally the program on innovation and urban planning is held in Barcelona, Spain. The conference is planned to take place in Atlanta for the next three years.
During the ceremonies, Mayor Mike Mason remembered the founder of Technology Park/Atlanta, Paul Duke. He said: “I would like to think Paul Duke would be proud of us for trying to recapture that spirit of innovation that he started here back in the (1970’s and 1980’s),” Mason said after the ribbon cutting.
Though Curiosity Lab’s work is futuristic in nature, the Paul Duke STEM High School students brought in today’s real time a new wrinkle to ribbon cutting. Here’s our Big ATTABOY! to them.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Follow Us