Wright Brothers Day | Photo by Rose Taylor | The Wright State Guardian
On Thursday, Oct. 3, students, faculty, and various companies all came together in the Student Union Atrium to celebrate Wright Brothers Day. There were many learning opportunities for students to see how the Wright Brothers’ innovations helped to bring the topic of aviation, where it is today.
Who are the Wright Brothers?
According to the National Air and Space Museum, Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first people in history to create the very first airplane. Although many people know about that exciting accomplishment, many people forget about how they started.
The brothers began their journey in innovation as bicycle mechanics. They also had a short-lived career within the newspaper industry.
They went to school with an eventual famous poet and writer named Paul Laurence Dunbar, who created the newspaper at their school. Only three issues were ever published, but this was still a huge turning point in their careers.
Our very own library here at Wright State University is named after Dunbar.
Wright Brothers Day means a great deal to our school since it is named after the brothers, and the Brothers first took flight in Dayton.
Due to their great innovations, the Air Force Base eventually flourished on the grounds of the oldest flying fields in the world.
How the Wright Brothers impact our aviation community today
Evelyn Oktavec, a student here who works with Campus Recreation, helped to put on a paper airplane event for the community to come and enjoy throwing paper airplanes in the Student Union Gym.
“I know we started doing it because we wanted to celebrate Wright Brothers Day. I mean how many people make paper airplanes nowadays? So, it’s just something kind of different to help students have fun and connect with Wright Brothers Day,” Oktavec said.
She explained that they do this every year, and to keep a lookout in future years for this event to happen again.
Tyler Frost, who is with a small aviation company called The Grille, sheds some light as to why his company decided to set up a booth on campus.
He explained that The Grille was there to reach out and see what students are interested in. He hoped to connect with students who could feel passionately about the aviation community.
“A lot of what we try to do is gaming simulations, also known as training sims, research sims, maintenance sims, and just educational sims. We are located at Base B,” Frost explained.
Anne Felts is the vice president of marketing at Drone Express, a company that lives within the aviation community and it primarily focuses on drone deliveries.
“We are operating with an app called Drone Express Now, where people within a one-mile radius from their headquarters in Dayton can order snacks via our autonomous drone delivery service,” Felts explained.
She explains how they’ve been successful with Kroger, and Papa John's Pizza in the past. She hopes to find bigger partners in the future and to keep growing the small business.
Overall, the event provided many opportunities for students to learn more about engineering and aviation companies and opportunities in and around the Dayton area.