Lesson 1: Take Off

To complete the mission, students will need to connect their VEX AIR Drone Controller to VEXcode AIR. You may want to review the connection steps as a whole class before beginning. Use this article to help students get connected, if needed.

To learn more about using the VEX AIR Flight Simulator, read this article.

Each student should keep their own mission log documentation. Be sure that students can access the Mission Log (Google doc / .docx / .pdf) to document their flight practice. The mission log is intended to be a record of every flight students complete in the course, so that by the end of the course they can not only view their progress, but also calculate their total number of flights and total flight time in the VEX AIR Flight Simulator. 

• Decide if you will print mission logs for students to write on, or use the digital version.
• Establish a saving procedure for students to ensure they know how to complete and save their mission logs throughout the course.

Allow time for ALL students to practice the mission multiple times, and log their flight data for EVERY flight. Simple missions like this one are useful for not only targeting specific skills, but helping students develop habits for things like maintaining their mission log.

When dealing with drones, safety is paramount. Even though students are working in a virtual environment in this course, getting into good safety habits now will pay dividends moving forward. For instance, the Propeller Lock prevents the propellers from spinning until the pilot is ready to fly. Students will not be able to move the virtual drone without turning off the Propeller Lock in the VEX AIR Flight Simulator – mimicking the real world scenario of using the Propeller Lock on the VEX AIR Drone. Read this article to learn more about the Propeller Lock. 

Help students establish communication around the Propeller Lock. They should announce to their partner when the lock is off or on, to help get into the habit of clearly communicating about safety features.

Answers to the Check Your Understanding questions can be found here. (Google Doc / .docx / .pdf)

Consider reviewing the questions as a whole class, to ensure that all students have a shared understanding before moving forward. Since this is the first time students are using the VEX AIR Flight Simulator, taking time to review tactical things like connection steps and button functionality now will help students to focus on larger concepts later.