Drone Infinity Kit® and Microsoft FarmBeats for Students both took home 2026 Educators Pick Best of STEM honors, in two categories and two grade bands.
A high schooler pulls a quadcopter off the bench, swaps in two more arms, reloads the flight parameters, and sends it back up as a hexacopter to find out whether the extra motors are worth the extra weight. That is the kind of class period that just won an award.
Pitsco Education won two 2026 Educators Pick Best of STEM Awards. Drone Infinity Kit® took Best of STEM: Hands-On Learning for High School. Microsoft FarmBeats for Students took the Educators Pick Best of AI award for Middle School and High School.
Every judge in the program is a credentialed K-12 STEM educator. The people deciding which tools deserve recognition are the same people running fourth period. Two wins in one year from that group tells us we are building the right things.
Drone Infinity Kit®: Best of STEM, Hands-On Learning, High School
Your students build the drone before they fly it.
Drone Infinity starts as a box of parts: carbon fiber frame, motors, professional-grade flight hardware. Students assemble a quadcopter and fly it and then rebuild the same kit as a hexacopter and fly that. They set flight parameters in iNav and compare load capacity, structural performance, and flight dynamics across both builds. By the end of the unit, they can tell you which configuration they would choose for a given mission and show you the data behind the call.
Built for Grades 8 through 12, it is Section 889 compliant and CTSO approved, so it clears the procurement questions your CTE program is going to ask before anyone has to ask them.
Microsoft FarmBeats for Students: Educators Pick Best of AI, Middle and High School
Your students train the model.
Students wire a soil moisture sensor to a BBC micro:bit, put it in real soil, and collect real readings in real time. Then, they use their own data to make irrigation and crop health calls they can defend and see how AI is changing modern agriculture along the way. It connects data science, artificial intelligence, and sustainable agriculture in one build, aligned to NGSS, AFNR, and CSTA standards.
It works anywhere from Grades 5 through 12, it comes backed by Microsoft and FFA, and it runs using no ongoing software fees and no specialized setup, so you can start with what is in the box.
Explore Microsoft FarmBeats for Students
What These Awards Mean
Pitsco has spent more than 50 years putting tools in students’ hands. What makes these two wins land is who handed them over. The educators who picked Drone Infinity and Microsoft FarmBeats for Students are the same educators who unbox these kits, watch what happens at the table, and decide the results are worth telling a colleague about. That has always been the review we care about most.
Thank you to the Educators Pick Best of STEM program and to every teacher who took the time to judge.
Ready to bring award-winning STEM tools into your classroom? Connect with a Pitsco Education Advisor.
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