2025 High School Program

Info

Welcome Game Manual Tutorials and API

2025 Tutorials

Zero Robotics (ZR) is a programming competition where Astrobee satellites inside the International Space Station (ISS) are controlled by programs developed by YOU! You will create, edit, share, save, simulate, and submit programming code in order to accomplish whatever your given task is. After several rounds of competition, finalists will compete in a live championship aboard the ISS. An astronaut will use your code to conduct the championship competition in microgravity with a live broadcast!

Due to the transition to the new Astrobees, the following table shows the tutorials available for learning to program in the ZR IDE for the 2025 High School relaunch.

2025 PROGRAMMING TUTORIALS INDEX

No.	Tutorial Name	Description
1	Create an ZR Account	Set up a ZR account to access ZR IDE. (Sandbox setup instructions if needed).
2	Invite Team Members	Allows a team leader to add team members. (aka Manage Teams)
3	Piazza Signup	Use Piazza to ask questions, get answers, and receive updates from ZR. See others’ Q&As during the program.
4	Share Code with Team	Learn how to create a group project and share code with your team members.
5	Introduction to the ZR IDE Programming Part 1	ZR IDE and Programming Concepts
6	Introduction to the ZR IDE Programming Part 2	Variables, Data Types, and Operators
7	Code Structures Part 1	Conditionals and Loops, If/Then.
8	Code Structures Part 2	Conditionals and Loops, Else if/Else
...	Functions and Modular Code Design	Defining parameters, return values, code organization.
...	Pseudo Code	Comments; How to write pseudocode; What readable pseudocode looks like; Why it is helpful.
...	Movement / Distance Calcs	How to move, Compute Distances Between Robots and Block positions.
...	Data Structures	Arrays and Lists.
...	Optimization & Strategy Algorithms	Greedy search, knapsack type problem, threshold-based decision making.

2025 API REFERENCE

The API Functions document describes the available functions that can be used in your code.

As Zero Robotics transitions from using the SPHERES to the Astrobee Satellite, we wanted to centralize your teaching tools into one location. If you have suggestions on how to improve these tutorials or the content within the educator guide, please email those suggestions to MIT’s ZR Partner, the Innovation Learning Center, at Katie@MassILC.com.