You dream it.
We make it fly.
Custom curriculum, custom drones, custom software, engineered around your program, your competition, or your mission.
One of the best things about DroneBlocks is that we own the whole stack: incredible curriculum, our own drones, and the flight technology that ties them together. So when you arrive with a creative challenge or a once‑in‑a‑program opportunity, we can actually help you pull it off. We’ve quietly done this for our community for years. Now it’s a service, built for real ROI.
Already have a program? We’ll get DEXI into it.
Most of what people ask us for isn’t a new idea, it’s fitting the platform to a program that already exists. A research lab with its own agenda. A district with a curriculum map it isn’t going to rewrite. A competition with its own rules and scoring. Vertical Innovation gives you the toolkit and the licence; this is for when you’d rather not build it alone.
Integration
DEXI, DEXI OS and the simulator wired into the systems and workflow you already run, not a parallel stack your team has to maintain.
Alignment to your program
Mapped to your standards, your scope and sequence, your semester. We start from the 800+ lessons rather than a blank page.
Configured for your work
Airframes, payloads and firmware set up for what you actually fly, indoors or out, with the open stack you can keep changing after we leave.
Scenes, scoring & leaderboards
Custom simulator environments and the scoring behind them. The AVR competition runs on ours.
Your people, trained
Your instructors taught the stack, so the program keeps running long after the engagement ends.
The whole stack,
pointed at your idea.
Most education companies license one piece of the puzzle. We build all of it (the curriculum, the drones, the firmware, the simulator) in the open. That means when you come to us with a creative challenge, there’s no third‑party vendor to wait on and no black box in the way. We can change any layer of the stack, because we made it. We can actually say yes.
For years we’ve quietly done exactly that for our community. A custom simulator world for a competition. A tailored curriculum unit for a district. A one‑off drone build for a research pilot. A grant narrative that funded an entire program. We did it because we love the work, and almost always for free.
Now we’re formalizing it. Same team, same stack, now aimed squarely at your hardest, most creative ideas, as a service engineered for real return, not a science project. You bring the challenge. We bring ten years of platform.
If it touches drones and learning, we can make it.
Six places where a custom engagement turns into outsized impact, mix and match, or bring us something we haven’t thought of yet.
Custom curriculum
Standards‑aligned units, competition prep, and professional development built for your program, from a single lesson to a full K‑thru‑life pathway.
Custom drones & hardware
Bespoke DEXI builds, sensor payloads, and airframes: NDAA‑compliant, US‑made, and tuned to the mission you actually need to fly.
Custom software & simulation
Branded simulator worlds, web apps, dashboards, and integrations built on our open PX4 + ROS 2 stack, not a walled garden.
Competitions & events
Turnkey drone competitions, challenges, and showcase events: we design the format, hardware, scoring, and run‑of‑show, then help you run it.
Grants & funding
We co‑author Perkins V, Title, and STEM grant proposals that fund the whole stack: hardware, curriculum, and training in one narrative.
Research & pilots
Rapid prototypes and pilots for districts, universities, and industry, from a napkin concept to a flying demo your stakeholders can watch.
In the room, not on a slide.
From idea to in‑the‑air, fast.
A lightweight process designed to get you to a working result, without the six‑month statement of work.
Scope
A short call to understand the challenge, the outcome you want, and the timeline. No charge, no obligation.
Design
We shape the smallest build that delivers the win: fixed scope, a clear deliverable, and honest ROI up front.
Build
Our team builds on the existing DroneBlocks stack, so you pay for your idea, not for reinventing a platform.
Launch
We deliver, train your people, and hand off something you own and can keep running long after we’re gone.
We own every layer.
Because we build and maintain all of it, customization isn’t a special request routed through three vendors, it’s a Tuesday. That’s why the ROI is high: you’re buying a small, expert change to a platform that already works at scale, not a from‑scratch project with from‑scratch risk.
Pick any layer, or ask us to connect two that have never been connected before.
A few things we’ve built when someone asked.
Each of these started as a creative challenge from a partner, and became something real on our stack.
A rail‑inspection flight sim
A higher‑fidelity simulator scene that lets students fly a DEXI inspection over a real freight‑rail yard, built for a major railroad’s workforce program.
The national AVR competition
DEXI powers the Advanced Vertical Robotics competition: custom hardware, scoring, and curriculum delivered at national scale.
The Presidential AI Challenge
Our platform behind a national AI challenge, reaching classrooms across the country with a custom, autonomy‑forward experience.
Mars, the Himalayas & ancient Egypt
Custom simulator environments built so a single lesson lands for a specific audience, the same engine, a brand‑new world.
High leverage, by design.
You’re not funding a platform from zero, you’re renting ten years of one and pointing it at your goal.