Build Fly Code is a complete autonomous systems curriculum. Students learn to fly, code, and solve real problems with the same drone hardware used from after-school programs through service academies. Kids who graduate without hands-on autonomy skills are behind. Textbooks teach about drones. This curriculum teaches with them.
See sample lessons
Everyone starts with Essentials. From there, Build Fly Code organizes learning by altitude, not by age. Students enter where they are and climb as far as they choose. The same Hopper hardware works at every stage.
The foundation of the entire pathway. Everyone begins with Essentials, every time, even returning students as a refresher. Three parts: Build, Fly, and Code. Build is the mastery core, where students learn every part of the Hopper, from motors and PCB to propellers and battery, so they own the machine before they fly it. Grace puts Essentials first in every plan, no matter what.
Twelve hands-on missions designed for after-school programs and enrichment. Students learn to fly, solve problems, and build confidence with drones before formal coursework begins.
Five industry verticals with real-world mission scenarios. Emergency response, precision agriculture, package delivery, search and rescue, and site inspection. Each vertical pairs hands-on flight with career context.
FAA Part 107 certification preparation integrated with real flight experience. Airspace, weather, regulations, and emergency procedures taught through scenario-based learning, not memorization.
The ladder does not end at graduation. College students, service academy students, and independent learners continue with the same Hopper hardware. Mission design, autonomous systems coursework, and self-paced mastery, all on the platform you already own.
Build Fly Code Compete puts teams on a national leaderboard with three challenges drawn from the curriculum: Emergency Response, Search and Rescue, and Package Delivery. Same Hopper. Same field. New stakes.
See the Competition →Every lesson comes with everything an educator needs. No curriculum development required.
Detailed, case-study-based lessons with setup schematics, extension activities, embedded formative assessments, and sample responses. Everything you need to deliver engaging, standards-aligned instruction.
Each lesson includes a slide deck that provides real-world context, outlines key details, and sets clear expectations for each phase of execution. Test-prep questions are embedded throughout.
Available in digital and printable formats. Students log data, respond to scenario-based questions, and reflect on their findings during each simulation.
Teaching a class, homeschooling, or building a summer camp? Grace knows the FTW curriculum cold, every lesson across Build Fly Code, Hopper Quest, Part 107, and Essentials. Tell her your grade level, your schedule, and what you have, and she will advise you on where to start, what to run, and how to pace it across your weeks. Ask her anything. She is the expert, and she is right here.
Programs built on retired or foreign hardware cannot ladder. The curriculum your students start in fifth grade has to still work when they reach a service academy or an engineering school. Build Fly Code is the only US-built pathway that does.
Grace, FTW's expert assistant, is built into the platform at every rung to help with curriculum, planning, and questions. A student-facing mode that helps learners think rather than handing over the answer is in development.
Talk to us about your program
The Hopper a fifth grader flies is the same Hopper a USNA midshipman uses for mission design.
Skills compound. What students learn in Hopper Quest prepares them for BFC 2026 and Part 107.
NDAA compliant. No foreign dependencies. Built in America for American programs.
Perkins V eligible. Title IV-A eligible. Grant research support and purchase orders accepted.
Build Fly Code is built for institutional adoption. Every component meets the compliance, documentation, and funding requirements that program directors and district procurement offices need.
Hopper hardware and BFC curriculum qualify as CTE equipment and instructional materials under the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act. FTW provides grant documentation support for district procurement offices.
Hopper is not exposed to components from prohibited foreign manufacturers, making it fully compliant with NDAA Section 889. Eligible for use in Title I schools, JROTC programs, federally funded workforce contracts, and defense-adjacent curricula.
FTW Robotics accepts purchase orders and works directly with district procurement teams. Quote requests, sole-source justification letters, and compliance documentation are available upon request.
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Tell us about your program. We will research local and national grant opportunities specific to your situation and share our findings with you directly.
To everyone who owns a Hopper: thank you.
Some of you bought the very first Hopper in 2023. You believed before it was easy to, and we made you a promise, that it would get better, and better, and better.
We meant it every time we said we were close. We genuinely believed it, every time. The truth is it was harder than we imagined. Way, way harder. It took longer and cost more, in every sense, than we could have known. But we stood in it. For years. And then came the breakthrough.
Firmware 2.0 is here, and it is not a small step. It is a magnitude better, honestly a hundred times better than Hopper has ever flown. And every existing Hopper receives it, free, because that was always the promise.
We are proud of this one because we killed for it. And we couldn’t have done it without you. The early adopters gave us real feedback in real conditions, and that is exactly what now teaches an .ai platform that gets more intelligent with every flight, made smarter by the people in our network.
FTW is one of the few American drone companies that owns its entire telemetry and flight control stack. Wholly owned. Zero outside dependency. And it’s genuinely good. We have been teaching and learning on real systems, across the country, the whole way.
This July 4th, we shipped an American flight stack. And it’s actually good.