🧩 Ground School.
Block coding, simulator missions, and foundational drone concepts.
Ground School is the entry-level path to everything drone-related. Students learn to code with drag-and-drop blocks, fly missions in the browser simulator, and build the sequencing, logic, and geometry that everything above is built on. No drone required, and free to start.
Coding starts here.
Ground School turns drone flight into a hands-on way to learn computer science. Students build real programs with blocks, run them in a real flight simulator, and discover that code is just a set of instructions, aligned to CSTA and NGSS.
Drag-and-drop block coding
Students snap together blocks to fly missions, the same Blockly approach that makes coding accessible from kindergarten up.
Flight fundamentals in the simulator
The browser-based DEXI simulator teaches takeoff, hover, and navigation with zero hardware in the room.
Sequencing, logic & geometry
Loops, conditionals, coordinates, and angles: core CS and math concepts taught through flight paths students design themselves.
Over 400,000 community missions
A worldwide library of missions built by students: a living catalog to remix, learn from, and contribute back to. Free to start.
This is what a student opens.
Ground School is not a slide deck with a drone on the cover. It is a running platform: a shared world, a library of missions, and a block editor wired to the same flight stack the hardware uses.
Fly the sim
with a real radio.
Plug a RadioMaster T8L into any computer and fly the DEXI simulator with real transmitter sticks, the same Mode 2 controls that fly a real drone. Block coding teaches the logic; a radio in their hands gives students genuine stick time.
- Real two-stick Mode 2 control: throttle, yaw, pitch, and roll
- Connects over USB, no receiver, no drone, no install
- Muscle memory built in the browser carries straight to the field
The first step
on the flight path.
Ground School is Level 1, where every DroneBlocks student starts. Every capability stays on as they climb: block coding → Python → ROS 2 → applied research.
Ground School
Block coding and simulator missions. K–5, no drone required.
Hover Lab
Python and indoor flight. Adds DEXI‑3.
Flight Deck
ROS 2, C++, and computer vision. Adds DEXI‑5 and DEXI‑10.
Vertical Innovation
Applied research and industry applications on the full DEXI platform.
Pick a starting point, for most students that’s right here. Everything learned in Ground School carries up the flight path on the same curriculum spine.
No drone required.
Ground School runs entirely in the browser, or with physical DEXI Blocks for hands-on classrooms. There’s nothing to buy to get started, and no toolchain to install.
Start with zero hardware
Every Ground School mission flies in the browser-based DEXI simulator. Open a tab, snap together blocks, and watch a real flight stack respond, no drone, no install.
Add hands-on physical blocks
For tactile classrooms, physical DEXI Blocks bring block coding off the screen, the same concepts, in students’ hands.
Same code. Browser to DEXI.
The same PX4 firmware that flies the real drone runs in the browser simulator. The block mission a Ground School student writes today is the foundation for code they fly on a DEXI tomorrow.
The simulator isn’t a separate toy environment, it’s the same flight stack the hardware runs. That’s why Ground School and the levels above share one continuous flight path: code you test is code you fly.
Built for Ground School.
Part of 60+ courses and 800+ video lessons across the DroneBlocks platform. Ground School courses open in the DroneBlocks portal, each one a set of lessons with missions to fly.
Intro to Block Coding
First flights in the simulator: takeoff, land, and your first programmed mission with blocks.
Patterns & Geometry
Fly squares, polygons, and spirals to explore coordinates, angles, and loops.
Missions & Challenges
Community-built missions and guided challenges that grow with each student’s skills.