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Hello, flight!

Time for the big moment: your first program that flies the drone with no hands on the controller. You’ll build a simple take off, hover, and land sequence - the “hello world” of drone coding.
Fly in a clear space with no people or pets nearby. Keep the red LAND NOW button in reach - clicking it lands the drone immediately.

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The Flight blocks

Click the Flight category to see the flight blocks. These are your core commands:
echo.pitsco.com Flight block category showing take off, hover for, fly, spin, and land blocks

The Flight blocks: take off, hover, fly, spin, and land

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Build the program

Drag out take off

From the Flight category, drag a take off block into the workspace. Programs start right with take off - there’s no separate start block.

Add a hover

Snap a hover for 3 second(s) block underneath, so the drone holds steady for a moment.

Add land

Snap a land block at the end. Always finish a program by landing.
Your first program looks like this:
A stack of three blocks: take off, hover for 3 seconds, land

Three blocks snapped together - your very first flight program

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Run it

Click START PROGRAM

Click the green START PROGRAM button in the toolbar.

Confirm

A message says “Ready to execute the Block code for ECHO.” Click OK and your drone runs the program - take off, hover, land!
echo.pitsco.com ready to execute confirmation dialog

Click OK to run your program on the drone

Land anytime

If you ever need to stop, click the red LAND NOW button.

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Save your work

Your save code is at the top of the screen (like FZD6O4). Write it down - you can reopen this program later with I have a code. You can also use the FILE menu to manage your work.

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Experiment

Change the hover time

Make it hover for 5 seconds instead of 3. How does the flight change?

Add a wait

From the Control category, add a wait for [1] seconds block between moves.
Always end every program with a land block. If a program finishes without landing, the drone keeps hovering until you click LAND NOW. Landing cleanly is a habit of every good drone programmer.

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Level-up challenges

Finished early? Keep building. Each of these only adds one or two blocks:

The elevator

take off → hover → fly up briefly → hover → fly down → land.

The spinner

take off → spin right 2 seconds → spin left 2 seconds → land. Does it end facing where it started?

The scout

take off → fly forward → hover → fly backward the same time → land. Did it come home?

The showoff

Chain four different moves into a mini routine. Give it a name and demo it to a friend.
Instructor - fly one at a time. With a room of coded drones, run programs one team at a time in a marked flight zone. Everyone else keeps hands off the START button and a finger near LAND NOW.
You built and ran a program that takes off, hovers, and lands using START PROGRAM, tried at least one level-up challenge, and saved your work with the code.