Blocks
Blocks
The visual editor — the blocks a program is built from, and the Python they write for you.
Blocks is the editor students actually work in. A program is a pile of coloured blocks that snap together like puzzle pieces: pick them out of the toolbox, drag them into place, press Run, and the aircraft does what the pile says.
There is nothing to type, so there is nothing to mistype. A student who has never programmed can have a drone in the air in about a minute, and a class of thirty is not thirty different spelling mistakes.
The editor also writes Python as it goes, and shows it on request. That is not decoration and it is not the way in. It is the bridge out: the blocks come first, the Python is what they turned into, and by the time a student starts reading it they already know what it says because they built it.
Start with Your first program if you have never opened the editor. Basics then covers the drone’s own blocks and the handful of things that go wrong with them; Programming covers the standard categories — loops, decisions, variables — with a drone in every example rather than an abstract one; Reference is for looking things up once you know what you are looking for.
Your first program
Three blocks that fly a drone — and the Python they wrote for you.
The drone's blocks
All twelve blocks in the APEX GD240 category — what each one does, what its dropdowns mean, and the line it writes.
When it does not work
The handful of things that actually go wrong, what each one looks like from the pilot's seat, and how to fix it.
Loops and Timing
Repeating a manoeuvre without repeating yourself — and the wait block that makes every manoeuvre take time.
Logic and Math
Making a program decide something — and working out the numbers it decides with.
Variables and Functions
A name for a number, and a name for a group of blocks — the two ways a program stops repeating itself.
Lists and Text
Writing to the terminal, and keeping several values under one name.
Block reference
Every block in the toolbox, what it does, and the Python it writes.
Reading the Python
Optional. What the code panel on the right is, and how to read it without having to write any.
Beyond the twelve
What the drone and the simulator can do past the starter set — and exactly where the line is today.