Build and run a robot arm application in five short sessions, alongside other developers doing the same. Free, ~25 minutes a day, and it all runs in your browser.
This is a free, 5-day group session where you'll complete the Viam 101 course alongside other developers. You'll get a kickoff video to start the week, daily emails from a Viam instructor, a Discord group for questions, and a live Q&A to guide you throughout.
Over the week, you'll build a palletizing application from scratch: a robot arm that picks boxes from a station and stacks them on a pallet. You'll write the control logic, run it in simulation, and watch it work, using the same Viam APIs you'd use on physical hardware.
When you finish, you'll be ready for follow-on courses like Viam 102, in-person hackathons at our NYC robotics lab, and building your own robot with real hardware.
This cohort is built on Viam 101, our free, self-paced course. If you'd rather work through it on your own timeline, you can start anytime. See the full course overview.
How the week works
A simple daily plan to take you from first lesson to finished robot by the fifth day.
Kickoff Day 1: Meet your Viam instructor, get set up, and start building.
One email each morning: That day's lesson, plus additional tips and optional challenges.
A dedicated Discord channel: Share progress, ask questions, and get a daily check-in from your instructor.
Live Q&A, Thursday: Bring your questions to your instructor live before the final day. The session will be recorded, so you can catch up if you can’t make it.
Lessons by day
Mon: Kickoff and Machine setup
Tue: Set up code and the work cell
Wed: Move and pick
Thu: Live Q&A on Discord and Run the full workflow
Fri: Collision avoidance and wrap-up
Who it's for
The cohort is for you if you like a structured plan, want to learn alongside others, or signed up for Viam 101 but haven't had time to start. No robotics experience or hardware needed.
Recommended Skills:
Coding fundamentals: You know how to program.
Linux terminal basics: You know how to use a command line interface.
Comfort reading JSON: Viam uses JSON to configure your components and connections. You don't need to write it from scratch, but you should be comfortable reading and editing config files.
Already registered for Viam 101 but haven't started? This is a good time to start. Sign up with the same email and pick up with the group on October 19th.
See what people are saying about Viam courses
“Viam 101 is a good introductory course for people who can code and want to get started with robotic manipulation. It helped me understand how to think about robotic arms and ended with a working palletizing robot.”
Ashwani R.
Software Engineering Master Student
“This course showed what Viam can do in an easy to understand way. It was straight to the point, clear, concise, and interactive. Now I understand how to control robots over cloud.”
Park
Software Engineer & Founder
"It is a great course to see how the sim to real gap is being addressed and how amazing this space is going to be in the future.”
Ujjwal
Data scientist
Instructor
Jiwon Shin
Jiwon Shin is a Staff Technical Content Engineer on the Education team at Viam. She is an educator and creative coder passionate about making technology more accessible and engaging. Prior to joining Viam, she was the Domain Manager for Programming, AI, and Data at Codecademy. She also taught at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, teaching creative coding with p5.js and Arduino, as well as computer vision.
Viam Education
Viam Education is a free, developer-first program designed to help engineers learn robotics and build on the Viam platform. Viam Education brings together a series of free online courses, live events, hackathons, and NYC office hours to make building robotics applications more accessible than ever. Viam 101 and 102 are available now; upcoming courses include software engineering for robotics, motion planning, computer vision, and more. Join the Viam Discord for updates on events, courses, and more.
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FAQ
Q: Do I need a Viam account?
Q: Do I need a Viam account?
Q: How much does the course cost?
Q: How much time does it take?
Q: How much time does it take?
Q: Do I need a robot or any hardware?
Q: What simulation tool does the course use?
Q: What simulation tool does the course use?
Q: Do I need a robot or any hardware?
Q: Do I need a robot or any hardware?
Q: I already registered for Viam 101. Do I need to sign up again?
Q: I already registered for Viam 101. Do I need to sign up again?
Q: I already started the course. Can I still join?
Q: I already started the course. Can I still join?
