FESC

304’2025 (2025-10-31) – Friday

Posted on by What did you learn in School today ?

Today, I learned about:

The month of October, 2025, was the month when I got to learn more about the UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle. What, you say, is that? It is the formal name for what colloquially is named a drone. Then most of you at least know what I am talking about.

I signed up for a course to learn more about drones in São Carlos, state of São Paulo, Brazil. São Carlos is a great university city, with two well known public universities, UFSCar (Federal University of São Carlos) and USP (State University of São Paulo), besides other private ones. It is said to be the city in Brazil that has the highest rate of academic doctors per capita. More about São Carlos can be found in reference #1 below.

But of course there are also other schools beyond the universities. One of them is a federal technical school called IFSP São Carlos (Federal Institute in the state of São Paulo) and the city also has an educational foundation called FESC. IFSP and FESC have partnered up to offer a course named “Drones in action”, where 10 intensive classes of 2 to 3 hours each teach everything a layman needs to know about projecting, developing and deploying a drone, including not only technical details, but also legal regulations and security aspects. Right now, we are exactly in the middle of this course and I must say that it really has broadened my mind immensely. Here is an illustration from the course material:

This is the title page of the first class in the series about Drones in action: project, development and deployment. The course is presented by four enthusiastic persons (Guilherme Zonta, João Teodoro, Rafael Bastos, and Thiago Carvalho) from Instituto Federal de São Paulo in São Carlos, and is coordinated by Rogéria Kapp from Fundação Educacional São Carlos.

I got interested about finding out more on the subject and was lucky to retrieve an article from Nature in 2015, where the researches discuss how insects can fly and inspire developers of drones in their quest for light-weight, yet fast and powerful drones. I urge you to read the article which also gives very basic facts about why objects can fly. See reference #2 below.

Update 348’2025 (2025-12-14)

On 338’2025 (2025-12-04) was held the last class in the series Drones in action: project, development and deployment, with practical experience on how to navigate a drone. Today, I also obtained an e-book presenting a summary of the course, you can find it in reference #3, below.

And since I had participated in all activitities from the start, I also obtained a certificate for that, see the following photo:

Here you can see a photo taken on 338’2025 (2025-12-04) of me (guess who?) in the center with the following persons, from left to right: Thiago Carvalho Nogueira, Rafael Bastos Arantes, João Pedro Teodoro Batista , Guilherme Leonel Zonta Avi, and Rogéria Kapp.

Today’s header photo and also the following ones were taken by my friend Juliane Vianna who recently had some marvellous days on the Spanish island of Mallorca. More about Mallorca can be found in reference # 4 below.

Pictures from Sa Coma and Porto Cristo on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Photos taken by Juliane Vianna on 303’2025 (2025-10-30).

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

1: São Carlos

2: Aerodynamics, vortices and robobees

3: Fundamentos de VANTs – Projeto, construção e operação

4: Mallorca

*: What did you learn in school today?

335’2024 (2024-11-30) – Saturday

Posted on by What did you learn in School today ?

Today, I learned about:

You may rember that back in 2016, in three different posts, 28’2016 (2016-01-28), 39’2016 (2016-02-08), and 101’2016 (2016-04-11) , I wrote about the different dangerous viruses that were spreading around the world. At that time, COVID-19 was not known, and we all know what damages it has caused. Here is a flyer from the Brazilian school FESC showing how to recognize four different types of viruses. I translated it from Brazilian Portuguese. The original document can be found in reference# 1 below.

With all the different viruses around, if you are doubtful, how do you recognize the symptoms? This handy guide from FESC, the municipal educational institution in the city of São Carlos, SP, Brazil, can be of good help.

Today’s header photo was taken by my friend Joyce Biermayr, who spent a fabulous vacation with her family on Ifuru Island in the Maldives in the beginning of August this year. For those of you who live on the Northern hemisphere, I want you to think of it as a reminder that within half a year from now, hopefully you also will have as nice weather as you can see in this photo.

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

1: Saiba diferenciar os sintomas

*: What did you learn in school today?