You may focus on research involving theory (planning and control) and simulation, experiments with aerial robots in motion capture (esp. teams of robots filming people!), and eventually field experiments (Mines has a mine! https://mining.mines.edu/edgar-experimental-mine/ ⚒️🪨).

@micahcorah I was based in Fort Collins and didn't own a car so everything I'm familiar with is there. I used to volunteer at Wolverine Farm Publishing when they ran a non-profit bookstore inside one of the local coffee shops, they no longer do that, but they run plenty of events in their own space (https://www.wolverinefarm.org/). FoCoMx was also fun, but it's mostly indoors in poorly ventilated venues and I'm not sure I'd go nowadays.