Lake Area Tech launching drone racing and eSports program

Posted: Nov 2, 2021 / 06:18 PM CDT
/ Updated: Nov 2, 2021 / 06:19 PM CDT

WATERTOWN, S.D. (KELO) — Lake Area Tech student Hunter Jensen’s interest in drones took off a couple of years ago.

“And then about a year and half ago is when I pulled the trigger and bought my first couple of drones and started crashing them around,” LATC student and drone racing coach Hunter Jensen said.

Now you may hear even more of the gadgets buzzing around campus.

That’s because the technical college is launching a new program for students to compete in drone racing, something Jensen helped kickstart.

“I think it’s pretty great,” Jensen said.

Students in the program will be flying micro drones, and they’ll also be competing in virtual drone racing.

And that’s not all.

The program also offers esports, which is competitive gaming.

“It’s been around for ages, we look as far back as competitions with Pac-Man in arcade machines, but within about the early 2000s, eSports has grown into much much more as to what you see now on ESPN” LATC assistant IT director and server administrator Zachary Drees said.

Assistant IT director and server administrator Zachary Drees says the program will help students expand their resumes, and more.

On Tuesday the college held an open house for students to learn about the new opportunity on campus that will allow them to compete against other schools.

“I like to call them nerd sports because not everybody is a physical type of person and it’s just a great way to get more inclusion within the student body of the school,” Jensen said.

The eSports team will play as a club initially before moving to league play.

The drone racing team will enter league right away.