2025 Middle 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!

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 Game Mode	Learn how to create code for this year's game
6	Move Astrobee	Learn how to send commands to move Astrobee robots to a position in the Graphical Editor.
7	Conditionals 1	Part 1: Basics of the “If - Then” statement and For Loops in Graphical Editor
8	Conditionals 2	Part 2: Use the “Else-If” statement in Graphical Editor
9	Advanced Logic	Use logic operators in your conditionals in graphical editor.
10	Creating Functions	Learn how to create and use functions in the graphical editor.
11	Introduction to the ZR IDE Programming Basics	Getting to know the IDE and emphasizing basic C Coding Structure
12	Programming Basics - Part 2	Emphasize C Coding Structure part 2
13	Control Structures and Conditionals - Part 1	Conditionals and Loops, If/Then.
14	Control Structures and Conditionals - Part 2	Conditionals and Loops, Else if/Else
15	Control Structures and Loops	Using For Loops and While Loops for advanced control structure and repetitive tasks
16	Functions and Modular Code Design	Defining function parameters, return values, code organization, and scope
17	Pseudo Code	How to write pseudocode; What readable pseudocode looks like; Why it is helpful.
18	Movement / Distance Calcs	How to move, Compute Distances Between Robots and Block positions.
19	Data Structures	Arrays, Searching and Sorting Algorithms
20	Optimization & Strategy Algorithms	Greedy search, knapsack type problems, threshold-based decision making.
21	Code Submission	Instructions on how to submit your code.

2025 API REFERENCE COMING SOON

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.