Teach real coding with drone missions your class can fly today
The NextWaveSTEM Drone Simulator drops every student onto Kite Island with a drone, a block palette, and 27 missions — first flight to storm response — while a live Python view shows the real code behind every flight. In the browser, on school Chromebooks, with no installs and no student emails.
- Runs on Chromebooks
- No installs
- No student emails
- CSTA-tagged missions
- 27 missions, first flight → capstone
- 3 skill tracks in one classroom
- 0 installs, 0 student emails
- 8 skywriting trail colors
- 20 photos per flight from the drone's camera
A simulator next to coding apps and drone kits
Screen-only coding apps never leave the screen. Hardware-first drone kits are wonderful — and shared, crashable, and weather-bound. A classroom drone simulator gives every student their own aircraft, every single lesson.
| In the classroom | Coding apps only | Hardware-first kits | NextWaveSTEM Simulator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every student flies, every lesson | Code runs, nothing flies | Shared drones, turn-taking | Yes — one browser tab each |
| Cost of a crash | — | Props, batteries, repair time | Zero. Press reset, fly again |
| Space, weather & charging | No flying at all | Gym time, charging carts, calm air | Kite Island is always flyable — even its storms are on the syllabus |
| Path to real code | Varies by app | Often remote-control first | Every block mirrored live in Tello-style Python |
| Path to real drones | None | Built in | Graduates continue to NextWaveSTEM's Drones STEM Education Curriculum, up through FAA Part 107 exam prep |
Already flying real drones? Teachers run the simulator as the plan-and-debug step before real flights — and as the sub-day, rainy-day, and homework companion.
Blocks in. Real Python out.
Students build flight programs by snapping Blockly blocks — take off, fly to coordinates, repeat, read the wind sensor. Beside the workspace, a read-only Python view mirrors the same program in Tello-style drone-SDK code, so the bridge from block coding to text coding is on screen from day one.
Under the hood it's a real flight model: battery drain, distance sensors, seeded wind gusts (the whole class gets identical wind — fair for competitions), no-fly zones, and a camera that points wherever the drone faces and holds 20 photos per flight.
# the same program in Python
from drone import Drone
drone = Drone()
drone.takeoff()
for i in range(4):
drone.move_forward(3)
drone.rotate_clockwise(90)
drone.land()A flight deck built for teaching, not just flying
Airspace students must respect
No-fly zones close parts of the sky. Missions like Restricted Airspace make students thread a 3-meter legal corridor — their skywriting trail is the evidence.
Fly-to coordinates
The fly-to block moves the drone to exact (x, y, z) grid positions — coordinate geometry disguised as a meter-reading patrol route.
Wind you can sense
Seeded gusts hit the whole class identically. Students read the wind sensor and let an if/else pick the route — real conditional logic with real stakes.
A camera that cares where it points
The drone's camera points wherever the drone faces and holds 20 photos per flight. The capstone only counts photos that actually face the inspection target.
Skywriting trails
Pen-on, pen-off, eight trail colors. Flight paths become drawings, geometry proofs, and debugging evidence you can see from across the room.
An island with weather and moods
Kite Island shifts across day, night, wildfire, and storm states — so a night rescue feels like night, and a storm scout flies in a storm.
27 missions from first flight to capstone
The campaign is a curriculum in disguise: 26 guided missions in lesson order plus a free-fly sandbox. Each mission has star scoring and a 2-of-3 objectives rule, so “good enough to advance” and “worth mastering” are both honest.
Flight school basics
First Flight and Range Test — takeoff, landing, and reading telemetry: battery, altitude, distance sensors.
The debug squadron
Three dedicated Bug Hunt missions. Students fix broken flight programs — because debugging is the lesson, not the accident.
Paths & angles
Ring Rush, Square Patrol, Triangle Trace — turns, degrees, and geometry drawn in the sky with the trail pen.
Airspace rules
Airspace Alert and Restricted Airspace — plan routes around no-fly zones and thread the legal corridor.
Patrols with a purpose
Shark Watch on the coast; Meter Patrol flying exact grid coordinates through the village.
Loops on the job
Crop Check and Supply Run — repeat blocks turn ten commands into three.
Special delivery
Delivery Dash — payload drops on target, and a favorite to run as a whole-class competition.
Island scavengers
Island Scavenger and Scavenger Master — exploration, waypoints, and route optimization.
Wildlife ops
Wild Track — follow an animal across the island without losing it (or scaring it).
Rescue & response
Night Rescue, Wildfire water drops, Lighthouse, Storm Scout, and Storm Run — sensors and logic under pressure.
Reading the wind
Wind Watch and Mountain Wind Run — the wind sensor plus if/else decides the route to the summit.
The capstone
Inspection Rounds — a photo-inspection flight where only photos facing the target count. Camera, coordinates, loops, and logic in one flight.
Free fly
An open sandbox over the whole island — skywriting, experiments, and student-invented missions.
Mission 1 is a two-minute first flight. No sign-up screen in the way.
Multiplayer, the classroom-safe way
When the class is ready, flip a lesson into an event. Everything joins by short code — nothing to install, no student accounts required.
Live races by room code
Start a race, share a 4-character room code, and the class flies the same ring course — 3, 5, or 7 rings, easy or pro — with live rival ghosts and a podium finish.
Team relays
Relay mode turns racing into collaboration: teams split the course and hand off the drone, so the fastest coder isn't the only hero.
The weekly world challenge
One shared challenge each week with a global leaderboard — an async competition your class can enter in a single period.
Run it like a classroom, not an IT project
Built with teachers on the roadmap calls, not just in the marketing copy. Here's the teaching layer around the simulator:
Class codes, not student emails
Create a class, get a 6-letter class code. Students join with the code plus a username — the Tinkercad model your district already trusts. No student emails, ever.
A dashboard that flags who's stuck
See attempts, stars, and a needs-help flag per student — spot the quiet struggler before the hand goes up.
Present mode for the projector
One click hides the chrome and enlarges the island and objectives for whole-class demos. It even has its own bookmarkable link.
Teacher mode & lesson numbering
Unlock every mission to preview next week today. Missions carry lesson numbers that match the curriculum order, plus built-in teacher notes and a solution reveal.
Progress that travels
Portable NWS2- save codes carry a student's progress between any two devices with zero accounts, and NWSC1- share codes pass whole block programs around — perfect for starter code.
Standards, stars & diplomas
Every mission is tagged with CSTA standards. Students climb XP ranks from Cadet to Ace, earn badges, and finish the campaign with a printable diploma.
Teacher mode unlocks all 27 missions for review — the same link works for planning at home.
Every mission is a real drone job in miniature
Kite Island's missions aren't arcade levels — they're modeled on the work commercial drone pilots actually do. Students leave knowing what the skill is for.
Precision agriculture
Survey fields, spot trouble, fly efficient passes.
Trained on: Crop CheckInfrastructure inspection
Photograph structures from the right heading and altitude.
Trained on: Inspection Rounds · LighthouseDisaster response
Fly in wind, at night, over fire — when conditions are worst.
Trained on: Wildfire · Storm Run · Night RescueDelivery & logistics
Payloads on target, routes under constraint.
Trained on: Delivery Dash · Supply RunConservation research
Track wildlife without disturbing it.
Trained on: Shark Watch · Wild TrackUtilities & energy
Patrol lines and meters on exact coordinates.
Trained on: Meter PatrolReady for real aircraft? The next runway is NextWaveSTEM's Drones STEM Education Curriculum — its high-school course prepares students for the FAA Part 107 exam.
Questions teachers ask before takeoff
Will it run on our school Chromebooks?
Yes — it was built for them. The simulator runs entirely in the browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari) with nothing to install, and the heavy 3D and block-coding libraries are split into separate chunks so Chromebooks download them in parallel. If your class set can open a website, it can fly.
Do students need accounts or email addresses?
No. Students can launch and fly instantly with zero accounts, and carry progress between devices with a portable NWS2- save code. For a managed class, the teacher creates a class and gets a 6-letter class code; students sign in with the code plus a username — no student emails, ever.
Do I need coding or drone experience to teach with it?
No. The 27 missions are sequenced lesson by lesson with guided objectives, three dedicated debugging missions, and a free-fly sandbox. Teacher mode unlocks every mission for review, a solution reveal is built in for each mission, and present mode turns any lesson into a projector demo.
How do class codes work?
Create a class as a teacher and you get a 6-letter class code. Students join with that code and a username of their choice. Your dashboard then shows each student's mission attempts, stars, and a needs-help flag so you can spot who is stuck before they raise a hand.
Is the Python real?
Yes. A read-only Python view mirrors every block program in Tello-style drone-SDK code — drone.takeoff(), drone.move_forward(3), for i in range(4) — exactly what students would write to fly a real classroom drone. Blocks and Python stay in sync as they build.
Which standards does it align to?
Every mission is tagged with the CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards it exercises (for example CSTA 1B-AP-10 or 2-AP-13), and the campaign order matches a lesson-numbered curriculum so mission 1 is lesson-ready on day one.
What does the simulator cost?
The simulator is free to fly in the browser — no trial clock, no student seats to count. For the full classroom curriculum, drone equipment, and teacher training around it, talk to NextWaveSTEM about the Drones STEM Education Curriculum.
Cleared for takeoff
Your first mission takes two minutes, runs on the devices you already have, and asks for nothing from your students but curiosity.