Drone Soccer
Dixon Schools Drone Soccer Update, January, 2026
We are in our 3rd year of drone soccer at Dixon Schools. We have teams at Reagan Middle School and Dixon High School that continue to meet and practice weekly.
We have been asked to host the Region VI Tournament/National Qualifier for U.S. Drone Soccer again this year. We are planning to hold our tournament at DHS on Saturday, February 14, 2026 at noon. We know there are other groups in our region that are trying to get their programs going, but I’m not sure if we’ll have any outside competition this year. Our tournament is posted on the national calendar of events and we are hoping for some outside competition.
We are planning to have coaches Nick Haws and Charlie Bishop take some of our student pilots to demonstrate drone soccer at the Illinois Digital Educators Alliance Conference on February 9th and 10th. IDEACon is the largest annual educational tech conference in Illinois and we’re looking forward to demonstrating drone soccer and encouraging other schools to check it out.
We’re also working with the folks at the Consortium for School Networking to potentially do a drone soccer demo at their national conference in April. They are a large professional organization that advocates for schools and technology and their annual conference this year will be in Chicago and gives us a unique opportunity to demonstrate drone soccer to a national audience. If this works out, we will go to Chicago on April 14th to run a drone soccer demonstration.
The National Drone Soccer Championship this year will be at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University at Daytona Beach in Florida on May 18th and 19th. We are hopeful that we will again be able to send a team or two to compete at Nationals. Once we get through our regional tournament, we’ll see what we qualify for, then we will take a hard look at the logistics of taking students to Florida. Traveling will be more expensive than the previous years due to the location and competing during finals week does provides more challenges. We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to make an appearance in Florida and have our students represent Dixon well at the National Championship.
We thank our generous sponsors, volunteer coaches and staff, parents and students for their support, hard work and encouragement as we continue with this technology rich and empowering activity that we are proud to provide in Dixon.
Update 5-22-2024
2024-2025 Season Wrap Up Newsletter
Update - April 29, 2025
Our two teams are preparing to head east for the National Tournament on May 2nd & 3rd.
Here is the link to the livestream for the Nationals Tournament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDkBkVfW8LA
Here's the link to the Tournament Bracket on leagueOS.
https://fly.dronesoccer.us/league/stages/cpzgpddc5yj7ndbtndlobcm9b
Update - April 2, 2025
The venue for the National tournament has been changed and will now be held at the Skydome in Rome, New York on May 2nd and 3rd. We are working on arrangements and intend to send our top 2 teams out to compete again this year.
Update - February 26, 2025
Our 2025 US Drone Soccer District VI Qualifier/Tournament took place on February 8th. You can watch the full tournament on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/live/O89cHENSqHg
Our 1st place team is from Dixon High School and our 2nd place team is from Reagan Middle School. We are working on plans to try and take the 1st and 2nd place teams to the National Championship in Alexandria, VA on May 2nd & 3rd.
Thanks for all the support from our parents, students, sponsors and volunteers!
Update - January 7, 2025
Dixon High School will be hosting the Region VI Qualifying Tournament as part of the Road to Alexandria for the National Finals. The Region VI Qualifier will be in the old gym, "The Pit", at Dixon High School on Saturday, February 8th at 1pm. Admission is free. Come out and cheer on our pilots!
Scrimmage
Scheduled for Reagan Middle School cafeteria, Wednesday, 1-22-2025 3pm to 4pm -Parents, Fans and the Media are welcome to attend
Tournament
DPS is again pleased to be hosting the U.S. Drone Soccer, Region VI Tournament/Qualifier·
Date – Saturday, February 8, 2025, 1pm
Location – Dixon High School, small gym(“The Pit”)
Free and open to the public
Nationals
· The tentative date for the National Championship is May 1st to May 4th
· The specific location is TBD, but it will be in the Alexandria, Virginia area
· We are hopeful that we will be able to send students to Nationals again this year
We are planning to sell meat sticks from Headons for our fundraiser this year, as well as having new shirts available for purchase for fans to show their support.
For the 2023-2024 school year, Reagan Middle School and Dixon High School have been running an after school program for drone soccer. Drone Soccer is an aviation team sport.
We are affiliated with U.S. Drone Soccer and we use their guidance and Rulesets for our program. In gameplay, 2 teams of 3 to 5 drones compete in an arena measuring 10' x 10' x 20'. Goal rings hang on each end of the arena and each team has a designated Striker whose mission is to pass through the opposing goal. Teammates support their striker and protect their own goal. A match consists of 3, 3 minutes sets, with time for repair and replacement of drones between sets.
Videos of students having a practice competition in January 2024 are available at Youtube.
Sponsors
Update - February 5, 2025
Sponsors are coming on board for our second year. Contact us if you want to sponsor our kids.
2024-2025 Sponsors:
Dixon Public School District Foundation
We are fortunate to have received grant funding to start this program with the support of our district leadership.
We welcome the support of community and business sponsors to help us continue the program, host matches and potentially travel to tournaments.
We would like to acknowledge and thank these generous sponsors.
Trafera
Donaldson Foundation
Pro Com Systems
Comcast
Our Drone Soccer Team has welcomed guest speakers such as a US Army specialist undergoing training to operate military drones. We look forward to upcoming meetings and demonstrations with members of local law enforcement and area aerospace industry representatives about both their use of drones in real-life applications and other career opportunities within the field.
As part of the activity, students build and program drones. As they learn to fly the drones, student keep maintenance logs and flight logs. Students also earn their Drone Trust Certification, which is a program sponsored by the FAA.
This is a full impact sport, and repair work is required between sets and matches to keep the drones operational.
Dixon Public Schools is an early adopter of Drone Soccer in this area of the United States. There are other regions in the U.S. and internationally where this sports has been taking place for a few years, but overall, this is a new activity.
Drone use has skyrocketed in recent years in business, recreation, law enforcement and in military applications. We are thrilled to be able to provide our students with the opportunity to work with drones and explore new career opportunities.
Vision Award
Our Drone Soccer Program won the Vision Award from the Learning Technology Center in Illinois. Mr. Bishop, Mr. Manley, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Haws accepted the award at IETC in November of 2024 and offered a demo of the drone soccer equipment.
Nationals
Update - April 30 2024
Our middle school and high school teams had an amazing trip visiting Washington D.C. and competing in the National Championship. Our teams lacked experience at competitions, and were eliminated, but learned a lot and are fired up for next season.
Previous updates below:
Check out this great video story from WQAD about our program... https://www.wqad.com/article/news/local/dixon-high-school-reagan-middle-school-drone-soccer/526-cddb8ab9-9ee5-4661-be42-a2fd1c7bea65
We do indeed have our high school and middle school drone soccer teams headed to compete in the National Championship Tournament on April 27th!
We've done popcorn and chocolate fundraisers, and have additional sponsors helping us out. Thanks to our great sponsors for supporting our Nationals trip:
Cassens Health Insurance Agency
Reagan Middle School Student Council
Dixon Fire Charitable Trust
District VI Championship
Our February 24th, 2024 Tournament was a great Success! You can see the matches on Youtube.
1st Place Team - Reagan Middle School Pharaohs:
2nd Place Team - Dixon High School Knights
3rd Place Team - Reagan Middle School Skyfire:
National Championship
We have the opportunity to take 2 teams to the US Drone Soccer National Championship at Virginia Tech in April, 2024. We are working to make that happen for our students. Thanks to everyone that has helped us, and continues to help us as we blaze a trail in this new technology rich field.
