Dixon Public Schools' drone soccer teams work toward competing in 2025 national championship

The Reagan Middle School Pharaohs drone soccer team faces off against the Dixon High School Knights for the title Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024, in the US Drone Soccer District VI championship.

DIXON - Dixon High School will again host the United States Drone Soccer District VI Qualifier as the school hopes to make it to the sport’s 2025 national competition in Virginia.

The qualifier is free to attend at 1 p.m. Feb. 8 in the small gym at Dixon High School. Currently, the only competing teams will be Dixon High School and Reagan Middle School, but all teams in the district – which includes Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri – are invited, Coach Paul Wilson said in an interview with Shaw Local News Network.

Prior to the qualifier, a scrimmage will be held in the RMS cafeteria from 3-4 p.m. Jan. 22.

Dixon Public Schools began offering drone soccer to students at DHS and Reagan Middle School during the 2023-2024 school year.

It’s a fast-growing air sport that involves two teams with up to five players per team whose aim is to score as many goals as possible within three minutes. The sport is played in an aerial arena shaped similar to a soccer field with two suspended ring goals on either side.

“It was something that had kind of caught the eye of us tech guys, and when some funding came along, we had the good fortune of being able to purchase it,” Wilson said.

Wilson, a technician at DPS, is a co-founder and coach of the schools' drone soccer teams.

“This is not only a team sport, but it’s a very big STEM curriculum as well, from programming and building the drones and maintaining them as well,” he said.

RMS drone soccer team member Carter Rhodes makes repairs to his drone Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Each match consists of a best of three sets with five minutes between for drone maintenance.

The drones are shipped to the school completely torn apart. The students are tasked with building and programming the drones.

“It boils down to fly time and then really understanding the maintenance of the drones, because these drones are hitting each other all the time,” Wilson said.

The teams have practice on Wednesday and Friday each week. They’ll work on basic team maneuvers or play games like follow the leader where one person will fly a drone around the arena and the other team members copy their movements, he said.

“Our goal is to get to nationals again this year and I’m fairly certain it will happen,” he said.

The middle school and high school teams traveled to Virginia and competed in the U.S. Drone Soccer National Championship in April 2024. A total of 16 teams from around the country and an international team from Turkey competed at the event.

Although both Dixon teams were eliminated, “it was an opportunity for these students to be on a national stage for a sport because most of them don’t play other sports,” Wilson said.

The school was also able to fully fund the trip for the students who attended.

“They had a blast. We drove two of those mini buses from here in Dixon to Virginia there. It was an adventure, you know, seeing the National Mall and all the sites you would for the Washington D.C. area,” he said.

The U.S. Drone Soccer 2025 National Championship is tentatively set for May 1-4 in Alexandria, Virginia.

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Payton Felix

Payton Felix

Payton Felix reports on local news in the Sauk Valley for the Shaw Local News Network. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago in May of 2023.