MassRobotics Drone Academy 2026 with Duckietown
MassRobotics, Boston, July 2026: From July 6th to 10, MassRobotics hosted its eighth annual Drone Academy, bringing high school students together for a week of hands-on robotics education. The program was designed by Brown University and commercialized by Duckietown, with Amazon Robotics as an annual sponsor.
Building a drone from the ground up
MassRobotics hosted its eighth annual Summer Drone Academy, bringing high school students together for a week of hands-on robotics education. The program was designed by Brown University and commercialized by Duckietown, with Amazon Robotics as an annual sponsor. The 2026 edition combined hardware construction, programming, electronics, sensing, and flight into a single learning experience.
Students started by assembling their own drones, working through soldering, wiring electronic components, and sensor integration, giving participants direct experience with the hardware that underpins an autonomous robotic system, while connecting practical construction tasks with the underlying engineering concepts.
From hardware to autonomous flight with Duckietown
The Duckiedrone is central to this approach. Duckietown developed the platform as a Raspberry Pi-based autonomous quadcopter for robotics and autonomy education, with course material covering topics including communications, safety, state estimation, and control.
The 2026 academy continues a collaboration that began in 2019 between MassRobotics, Brown University, and Duckietown. Over the years, the program has evolved from its initial pilot into a structured hands-on curriculum and drone user kit.
For MassRobotics, the Drone Academy is part of its broader STEM programming, which connects students with robotics technologies, industry professionals, and practical engineering experiences. The 2026 program also included interactions with mentors and professionals from across the robotics ecosystem.
MassRobotics Drone Academy 2026 brings high school students into hands-on robotics through building, programming, and flying autonomous drones with Duckietown. And the motto says it best: Fly high!
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