Who it's for
Built for students ready to work above grade level
This bootcamp is aimed at high-achieving high schoolers and freshman/sophomore undergraduate students who want to learn advanced robotics — the kind of material typically taught at the senior or graduate level at a university.
Outcomes make for strong material when applying to colleges.
Outcomes make for strong material when applying to internships.
What you'll learn
From an idea to a robot that moves on its own
Students learn about autonomous mobile robot navigation — how a robot senses the world around it and decides how to move through it. Just as importantly, students practice the workflow of taking an idea from concept, to simulation, to hardware — the same process used in real robotics labs.
There are ample opportunities to use the outcomes of the bootcamp when applying to colleges, for high schoolers, and when applying to internships, for undergraduate students.
See it in action
A sample outcome of the bootcamp
An example of a sample outcome of the bootcamp.
The path
Three stages, one weekend on real hardware
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Step 1
The Qualifier
To get started, email pranav@uic.edu. Students then complete the Autonomous Mobile Robotics Qualifier, learning the fundamentals of Python and a robotics simulator through pre-recorded videos and hands-on tasks, and send their finished work back to pranav@uic.edu.
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Step 2
Bootcamp — Simulation
Students who complete the Qualifier are invited into the bootcamp. Working from home with provided materials, they build and test an autonomous navigation controller entirely in simulation.
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Step 3
Hardware Weekend
Successful students are invited to the University of Illinois Chicago for a weekend to run their controller on real mecanum-wheeled robot hardware.
Skills & expectations
No robotics background required
The bootcamp assumes students don't have any specialized skills, such as past experience programming or working with robots. What it does ask for is an open mind — a willingness to learn by doing, and to embrace vibe coding: using LLMs to help write, test, and fix code.
We don't guarantee every student will finish every stage. But even completing parts of the bootcamp is enough to walk away with real, new skills.
Help
Questions along the way
If you have questions, email the course developer at pranav@uic.edu. Depending on the question, you'll either get help by email or be invited to scheduled office hours.