Drone soccer officially took flight in Grand Cayman at the weekend thanks to entrepreneur and drone enthusiast Dervon Mckellop, who organised a public display of the sport in Camana Bay’s Gardenia Court.
Members of the public were invited to try their hand at this fast-growing sport, which Mckellop likened to Harry Potter’s favourite sport, Quidditch.
After an introductory video and a brief lesson for novice pilots on how to fly a drone, the first 10 participants soon had their drones airborne, accompanied by the sound of the whirring wings.
Mckellop himself is a licensed, commercial drone pilot and the founder of a regional drone-services company. He is also the driving force behind the DRIFT Enterprise Drones in School programme, which brings drone technology into the classroom.
Drone soccer can be played indoors or outdoors in a predetermined flying zone, defined by a rectangle marked by lines and protected with a cage. Players fly small drones in protective cages called drone balls and try to score goals by flying through a vertical goal ring while defending their own side.
Mckellop hopes that as more young people are introduced to drone soccer, schools will form clubs and participate in interschool competitions. “Drones are not only great for fun, and for sport,” he said, “But they’re great for education and for workforce engagement too.”
Mckellop himself first loved drones as a hobby, before turning his interest into a business.
“Back then, when drones weren’t so smart, I would pretty much spend a great portion of my salary just buying drones,” he said. “I remember sharing with some of my friends that I was going to become a drone pilot, and they all laughed at me.”
But, he added, “It didn’t stop there. I had a dream, I had motivation, and I knew what I wanted, so I went after it.”
The launch of this drone soccer programme is just the beginning of many things to come, Mckellop said. While drone soccer started relatively recently in South Korea in 2016, it has been growing steadily ever since.
“We’re actually preparing for the drone soccer World Cup in South Korea in September later this year,” Mckellop said.
“And it’s my goal as the leader of the organisation to ensure that the Cayman Islands is represented. It means that we’re looking for everyone who has the ability to control the fly drones to get involved in the sport. This is just the beginning.”
Thanks to the success of last weekend’s event, Mckellop is already planning another one so that more people can try their hand at flying a drone, and is going to hold open try-outs to put together a Cayman Islands national team to compete in the upcoming World Cup.
He is currently working on attracting corporate sponsorship and possibly even government funding for the team, and once a national side has been selected, is planning a pre-tournament warm-up friendly match with the Jamaican national drone soccer team.
