2.2: Flight Directions

Step 1

Getting Started

Make sure that your drone is connected with Blockly before starting the lesson! If you are unsure of how to connect, go back to lesson 1.1 to review!

Step 2

Flight movements

Air vehicles move a little differently than land vehicles. While land vehicles can move forward, backward, and sometimes side-to-side, air vehicles can do all of that and move up and down. To keep track of how a CoDrone EDU moves in a three-dimensional space, you can use the terms below:

Roll controls the CoDrone EDU’s horizontal, or side to side, movement. Positive roll will make the CoDrone EDU move to the right, and negative roll will make the drone move to the left.

Pitch is the CoDrone EDU’s forward and backward tilt. Positive pitch will make the CoDrone EDU tilt and move forward, and negative pitch will make the CoDrone EDU tilt and move backwards.

Yaw is the CoDrone EDU’s left and right rotation. Positive yaw will make the CoDrone EDU turn to the left, and negative yaw will make the CoDrone EDU turn to the right.

Throttle controls the CoDrone EDU’s vertical, or up and down, movement. Positive throttle will make the CoDrone EDU fly higher, and negative throttle will make the CoDrone EDU fly lower.

Be careful with yaw and roll! Yaw will make your CoDrone EDU turn left or right, while roll will move your CoDrone EDU left or right.

Step 3

Blind drone

Have a friend sit down, blindfold them (or just have them keep their eyes closed), and guide them through an obstacle course to sitting down in a different chair using only flight movement words. Make sure that anything dangerous is out of their way first!

Positive throttle: stand up
Negative throttle: sit down
Positive pitch: one step forward
Negative pitch: one step backward
Positive yaw: turn left
Negative yaw: turn right
Positive roll: move one step to the right
Negative roll: move one step to the left

For example, if you wanted to tell your friend to move forward, you could say, “Positive pitch 2 steps.” That would let your friend know that you want them to move forward by 2 steps. For turning, say “Positive yaw 45” and your friend should turn to the left 45 degrees. Once your friend successfully completes the obstacle course, switch roles so they can give you directions!

Step 4

Flight variables

You can also use the blocks in the aqua flight variables menu to move your drone. These blocks work exactly the same way as the blue move block, but they’re more broken down. You can stack blocks to make your CoDrone EDU to go in one or a couple of directions at once (like diagonally to the right), and then use the aqua move block afterwards.

Try the code below to see what happens!

Warning: if you want to see distinct directions one after the other, you will need to set the previously flown direction back to 0% before adding on the new flight direction. Otherwise, your drone will keep performing that action throughout the entire program. Try the program below after testing out the program above to see what we mean.

Step 5

Turn_degree

In addition to being able to fly up, down, left, right, forward, and backward, your CoDrone EDU can also turn left and right using the turn_degree() function in the flight commands menu.

Unlike the Junior function, this block will not turn the specified number of degrees that you set. Instead, it will turn to that degree heading. Imagine a compass on the floor that resets every time you pair the drone.

Run this code to illustrate how absolute heading works. CoDrone EDU will takeoff, turn left 90 degrees, then turn left again 30 degrees to reach 120 degrees.

If you want to reset your “compass” back to 0 degrees, you can use the reset_sensor() from the orange “Sensors” menu. You will learn more about the sensors in a later lesson.

Step 6

Move block

Now that you have had a little practice with the individual flight variables, you can also combine the movements into one block. This block also makes it easier for you to reset any other variables back to 0. The parameters are roll, pitch, yaw, throttle, and duration, in that order.

For example, guess the flight pattern of the code below. Then, run the program. Were you right?

Step 7

Challenge

Challenge: Chutes and Ladders

Now that you know how to use flight variables to control the CoDrone EDU, try programming your CoDrone EDU to fly like it is climbing a ladder and then going down a spiral slide!

Here are some hints:

Try to make your CoDrone EDU climb the ladder like a set of stairs.
To make your CoDrone EDU ‘spiral’ down the slide, trying turning while flying down at the same time!

Step 8

Lesson Complete

In this lesson, you learned about the concept of flight variables. Roll, pitch, yaw, and throttle are all used to control the CoDrone EDU’s directional movement in the air. These flight variables are also seen in other aviation uses, such as helicopters and planes!

This lesson works with:

Grade level:

Approx. time required:

CSTA

CCSS