The Robotics Pit Crew Learning Lab

Build skills. Then build robots.

Free, classroom-ready courses that pair short visual lessons with teacher plans, student workbooks, working code, and hands-on practice.

Choose a learning path

Start where your students are.

Each course is organized so a teacher can open one lesson and find the video, discussion prompts, code, and printable materials together.

FTC12 lessonsBeginner

FTC Java

Follow an FTC program from INIT through TeleOp, then apply motor encoders and the Control Hub IMU to build repeatable autonomous movement.

  • Whiteboard video lessons
  • Teacher lesson plans and pause questions
  • Student workbooks and answer keys
  • Downloadable FTC Java examples
ESP324 lessonsBeginner

C++ and ESP32

Begin with source code, variables, input, and decisions on a laptop, then move those ideas onto an ESP32 for the first supervised hardware upload.

  • Teacher and student lesson packets
  • Starter and completed code
  • Laptop setup guide
  • First ESP32 setup-and-loop project
Teaching model

See it. Discuss it. Build it.

01

Watch

Use a short visual lesson to introduce one programming idea without overwhelming new students.

02

Pause and discuss

Stop at the teacher prompts, ask students to predict what happens next, and check understanding.

03

Build and test

Students complete the guided code or hands-on activity, then explain the result in their own words.

Robot lessons always include the POWERING ON sequence

Secure the robot, confirm it is disabled, clear the work area, call “POWERING ON!”, wait for everyone to step away, visually confirm the area is clear, and only then enable the robot.

More paths are coming

Keep learning with the Pit Crew.

Planned topics include FTC servos, sensors, AprilTag vision, Android Studio team workflows, and collaborative Git.