Inside Fort Walton Beach's Hsu Innovation Institute, where future tech leaders are trained

While their peers were taking a break from school during the Thanksgiving holiday, about two dozen children were learning about computer programing, robotics and flying drones at the Hsu Innovation Institute.

Led by teenagers from the institute's robotics team, Open Robotics Day provided an opportunity for students in grades 2 and up to get a little taste of science, technology, engineering and mathematics through some hands-on projects.

At one table in the institute's expansive workshop space, Teagan Myers sat focused on a computer, while operating a joystick box that controlled the movements of a drone making its way through an obstacle course on the screen.

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Teagan Myers tries her hand a piloting a drone using a computer-based flight simulator during and Open Robotics Day at the Hsu Inovation Institute in Fort Walton Beach.
Teagan Myers tries her hand a piloting a drone using a computer-based flight simulator during and Open Robotics Day at the Hsu Inovation Institute in Fort Walton Beach.

At another table, brothers Julien and Jaiden Wauchope learned about coding using a tiny robot about the size of a golf ball. The Ozobot allows users to control its movements along a path by using colored markers to create "commands."

The event was just one of many for the institute, which has campuses on Anchors Street in Fort Walton Beach and at the Bob Sikes Airport in Crestview, as well as a dedicated drone-testing facility near Laurel Hill.

The institutes are part of the Hsu Educational Foundation, founded in 2015 by Dr. Paul Hsu, a longtime Fort Walton Beach businessman and entrepreneur. The Taiwanese-born Hsu immigrated to the United States in 1976, earning a master's degree in industrial management and engineering before founding Manufacturing Technology Inc. in Fort Walton Beach.

MTI provided electronics and avionics equipment to the U.S. Department of Defense and was one of four technology ventures that Hsu founded in the area. Since selling MTI in 2007, Hsu has served on numerous state and national advisory boards and was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as associate administrator for government contracting and business development for the Small Business Administration.

"Our mission is to encourage excellence in teaching, both inside and outside the traditional classroom as well as fostering innovation," said Hsu Educational Foundation CEO Amanda Negron. "So that's collaboration, that's ideation, encouraging people to become entrepreneurs and finding those solutions for the future."

Siblings Jaiden and Julien Wauchope react to tiny robots as they traverse a path they created on paper during an Open Robotics Day at the Hsu Inovation Institute in Fort Walton Beach.
Siblings Jaiden and Julien Wauchope react to tiny robots as they traverse a path they created on paper during an Open Robotics Day at the Hsu Inovation Institute in Fort Walton Beach.

With the help of industry partners, the innovation institute taps the expertise of local professionals in both business and military to help inspire the next generation of technology students, and shows them what kinds of jobs and opportunities await them in the field. It also provides a fertile ecosystem for those professionals to meet, learn and collaborate on a variety of technology-related challenges that one day may result in the creation of new technology businesses and opportunities in the local area.

The Hsu Innovation Institute offers classes almost daily on topics ranging from computer programming and cybersecurity to building, testing and operating robots and unmanned aerial vehicles. The institute has also partnered with Step One Automotive to offer teens ages 13 to 17 a nine-week course in small-engine repair.

Students at the Hsu Innovation Institute  crowd around a dog-shaped robot during a recent Open Robotics Day at the facility in Fort Walton Beach.
Students at the Hsu Innovation Institute crowd around a dog-shaped robot during a recent Open Robotics Day at the facility in Fort Walton Beach.

Negron said the institute on Anchors Street had more than 10,000 participants last year, about 3,600 of them students from kindergarten to grade 12. She said one of their more popular programs is the Drone Team Challenge. Beginning as early as third grade, students can participate in a hands-on program that teaches aviation principles and the programming and operation of flying drones.

The institute also hosts three Drone Team Challenge competitions during the school year for elementary, middle and high school students. Teams of four to eight students, led by an adult adviser, compete three times per school year, demonstrating their understanding of drone flight, programming and operation as well as their ability to convey what they've learned in a mentor relationship with another student.

The Ozobot robot teaches basic programming techniques by allowing users to control its movements using colored markers to create Òcommands.Ó
The Ozobot robot teaches basic programming techniques by allowing users to control its movements using colored markers to create Òcommands.Ó

A while learning to build, operate and maintain drones and robots might seem like fun and games to students, Negron said students are also learning skills that will serve them well in the future workplace.

Negron cited one student from north Okaloosa County who parlayed his Drone Team Challenge experience into a job performing aerial surveys of farm fields to measure the effectiveness of different fertilizers. It is this connection of students with the challenges and opportunities of the real world that the Hsu Innovation Institute is trying to foster, Negron said.

"When we say follow your dreams, I don't think that goes far enough in providing them the right pathway advice," Negron said . "We want them to have high-paying jobs; we want them to do well in their lives. And we know that if they're working on some of the harder challenges that we all face, that's always going to be important."

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Fort Walton Beach Hsu Innovation Institute trains future tech leaders