Awards & Contests

Monthly Student & Teacher Awards

This is an opportunity to highlight all of our talented individuals and their accomplishments. Organizations may submit one nominee per month for each category, with monthly awards to be announce. All nominees submitted are eligible for the national awards. Please prepare the following for your submissions:

  • A paragraph description of their achievements
  • A paragraph letter of recommendation
  • A picture of the student
  • A media release from your organization 

Aviation Achievement Award
    Eligibility: All students grades 6-12
    Description: Nominate your student or staff who have advanced their lifelong pursuit of aviation through training milestones, internships, scholarships, or special projects. 

Outreach Award
    Eligibility: All students grades 6-12
    Description: Nominate students who have helped increase visibility and accessibility of aerospace opportunities in their community through projects, internships, & social media. 

Top Pilot Award
    Eligibility: All students grades 6-12
    Description: Nominate students who have distinguished themselves through leadership, expertise, and support to their drone soccer team or league. 

Aerospace Education Award
    Eligibility: All teachers, educators, and coaches including undergraduate program managers 
    Description: Nominate mentors who have made a meaningful impact on young people through their passion for flight, engineering, and lifelong learning.  

Student & Team Contests

These contest can engage students beyond Drone Soccer and help connect them to opportunities in aerospace. There are no limit on the number of contest  

  • A paragraph description of the project, process, and design choices
  • A paragraph letter of recommendation from the teacher or coach describing the project team and process
  • Upload all media associated with the project (ex: project cover photo, video, art file) 
  • A media release from your organization 

Monthly Social Media Content Contest
    Eligibility: All student teams grades 6-12
    Deliverable: Cover photo and social video 
    Deadline: Last day of each month
    Description: Share your team in action with short videos for social media that display tactics, gameplay, or preparation. The best videos will be reviewed and shared each month. 

Engineering Design Contest
     Eligibility: All students grades 6-12
    Deliverable: Cover photo, presentation video (3 min) including performance demo, design documentation 
    Deadline: March 18th
    Description: Design and fabricate a modification, upgrade, or unique part for your DS200 Drone Soccer Ball to address a specific use. A panel of judges will rank submissions according to project complexity, fun and accessibility of presented information for a student audience, and confidence in spoken word delivery. Be sure to document your engineering design process to include in your presentation: 

  • Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem 
  • Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process
  • Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among solutions 
  • Model to generate data for iterative testing towards an optimal design

Aerospace Career Immersion Virtual Poster
    Eligibility: All students grades 6-12
    Deliverable: Cover photo, virtual poster presentation (3 min)
    Deadline: March 18th
    Description: Interview or shadow an aerospace profession of your choosing and create a three minute video presentation (including some brief images, slides, or clips) about your experience. Your target audience is other Drone Soccer pilots who might potentially be interested in that career and how to pursue it. A panel of judges will rank submissions according to depth of career research (regardless of method), fun and accessibility of presented information for a student audience, and confidence in spoken word delivery. Example topics to include: 

  • The skills and challenges of their profession
  • How their profession has evolved over history, where it is going 
  • What makes their profession exciting or unique
  • How their profession connects to your classroom topics
  • What are the steps for students to enter that profession 

Team Flight Patch Design Contest
     Eligibility: All students grades 6-12
    Deliverable: Cover photo, presentation video (1 min), art file. 
    Deadline: March 18th
    Description: Design an embroidered cloth flight patch to be worn by your team and traded with other teams. We recommend a maximum design size of 4 inches. Designs should incorporate motifs to represent your team, school or program, as well as local aerospace and aviation heritage. A presentation video (1 minute or less) should showcase your chosen design elements, symbolism, and historical significance. We recommend bold linework for clean embroidery and can recommend thestudio.com to have them produced for your team. More information about how to design a flight or mission patch? 

National Commemorative Coin Design Contest
    Eligibility: All students grades 6-12
    Deliverable: Cover photo, presentation video (1 min), art file.
    Deadline: March 18th
    Description: Design a commemorative challenge coin (1.75" to 2") for U.S. Drone Soccer that incorporates motifs from American aerospace and aviation heritage. These are often given as awards for achievements or to commemorate special events. The winning design will be minted and presented to the League in April. A presentation video (1 minute or less) should showcase your chosen design elements, symbolism, and historical significance. What is a challenge coin (video)? More information about design and sizing.