A drone soccer league is coming to Philadelphia

At the launch party for Philadelphia’s new drone soccer league on Monday, Shari Williams was perfectly happy to lose a demonstration match against two of her former drone instruction students. “It’s OK. They are supposed to be better than me. That’s the goal,” she said afterward, laughing.

Williams, who calls herself “the Goddess of Drones,” is the head of Philadelphia Drone Soccer. She believes the sport is the perfect tool to introduce science and technology to Philly youth, while also giving them another option for productive after-school activities besides traditional sports.

Williams also conducts drone training classes for students and adults. The classes teach participants about drones, give them flight experience and prepare them to pass the FAA’s drone piloting certification exam.

“When I would go and talk at career days, I would [ask students], ‘What do you want to be?’ And a lot of the younger guys would say [things like], ‘Oh, I wanna play basketball.’ Some of the ladies would say, ‘Oh, I want to be a cosmetologist.’ And those are great things ... but I don’t think STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is pushed enough ... and this gives a fun way to do it.”

Drone soccer is part educational robotics and part competitive team sport. In a match, players will each fly their own individual drone inside of an enclosed cage, with two opposing hoop-shaped goals. Teams score points when one designated drone, called a “striker,” flies through their opponent’s goal; the other players try to keep the other team’s striker out of their own goal. The sport is relatively new after gaining popularity in South Korea, but is now played around the world, including the United States.

Each drone has a protective exoskeleton around it, since the tiny remote controlled devices constantly ram against each other as they buzz through the air. And in a match, the “sets” of gameplay come in short bursts, so that players can repair their drones and replace batteries as needed.

To be able to make those sorts of fast-paced repairs on the fly, players need to learn the ins and outs of their drones. That’s where the educational piece comes in, as players will learn all of the technical aspects of their machinery and the rules and regulations of drone aviation before they ever play a match.

“Even [these] little drone[s]...they have to be well-engineered, in the sense [that] all of [their] parts are set up in a certain way” said Oscar Estrada, one of the instructors and technical experts with Philadelphia Drone Soccer. “Power to weight ratio, the propeller... this [certain] amount of volts... it’s like a car.”

Estrada hopes that students who join the league can catch the “bug” for robotics and aviation. He explained that drones are used in numerous career fields, and having experience with them could open up Philly kids to a lot of opportunities. “This is just the beginning [for them],” he said.

The league is still in its infancy and looking for more incubator institutions like schools, churches or community groups to sponsor teams; Williams hopes that one day there will be teams all across Philadelphia. The first team in the league will be housed at the Church of Compassion in West Philly. Over the past few weeks Williams, Estrada and other instructors have taught youth there about drones. Eventually, the kids there will form their own drone soccer team.

“[At] first, I didn’t want to [do it],” said Brandon McLean, 12, a participant at Church of Compassion, about his mother signing him up for the program. But once he started flying drones himself he was hooked; it reminded him of playing video games, and he liked learning about all of the drone’s different parts.

Now, McLean is ready to put his knowledge to use. He plays other sports too and plans to approach this new one much of the same way. “I like the competition”, he said.