Viam Launches Education Programs to Help Developers Build Robots in the Physical World
Quick Answer
Viam has launched Viam Education, a free program aimed at helping developers build robotics applications without prior experience.
Quick Take
The program includes Viam 101, a 90-minute course that teaches fundamental concepts of robotics, and offers various online resources, live events, and hackathons to enhance learning and practical skills.
Key Points
- Viam Education offers free online courses and live events for robotics developers.
- Viam 101 is a self-paced course that teaches fundamental robotics concepts in 90 minutes.
- Over 800 developers registered for the program before its launch.
- The platform supports programming in Python, Go, TypeScript/JavaScript, and C++.
- Upcoming events include hackathons and workshops with industry partners.
DeepSignal Analysis
What happened
Viam has introduced Viam Education, a free program aimed at assisting developers in creating robotics applications. The program includes Viam 101, a 90-minute course covering essential robotics concepts, and offers various online resources, live events, and hackathons to facilitate learning.
Key evidence
- Viam Education is designed for a range of experience levels, from beginners to large companies transitioning from prototypes to commercial deployment.
- The introductory course, Viam 101, is a self-paced online course that teaches students to model physical spaces and program robotic arms, culminating in a working robotics application.
- Over 800 developers registered for Viam 101 prior to its launch, indicating significant interest in the program.
Why it matters
This initiative reflects a shift towards making robotics more accessible to software engineers, who traditionally faced barriers due to the need for hardware expertise. By providing structured education and resources, Viam aims to empower a broader audience to engage in robotics development, potentially accelerating innovation in the field.
What to watch
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~3 min readViam Launches Education Programs to Help Developers Build Robots in the Physical World
New education program, led by Shannon Bradshaw, SVP of Product and Education, begins with Viam 101, offering engineers a direct path to building robotics applications
Viam, the software platform for robotics and automation, today announced Viam Education, a free, developer-first education program designed to help engineers 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.
The program is designed to serve a wide range of experience levels, from those experimenting with hardware for the first time to large companies moving from prototype to deployment in commercial settings. No prior robotics experience is required. Viam 101, the introductory course, is a free, self-paced online course that provides a practical foundation for building robots and physical AI applications. In 90 minutes, the course walks through the three fundamental concepts behind modeling a physical space in software and programming a robotic arm to avoid obstacles and perform a useful task. By the end, students will have built a working robotics application in simulation and be ready to build their own robot. Over 800 developers signed up ahead of the launch.
"For a long time, building robots required deep hardware expertise. That's changing fast," said Shannon Bradshaw, SVP of Product and Education. "Today, any software engineer can build sophisticated robotics applications with the right tools. Viam Education helps developers get there fast, giving them the practical skills to build real-world robotics applications."
Viam is built for how software engineers already work. The platform provides hardware controllers and services such as motion planning, computer vision, and data capture and sync, exposing everything through clean, consistent APIs so developers can write control logic in Python, Go, TypeScript/JavaScript, or C++ without the need to interface with lower-level infrastructure. The same code that runs in simulation runs on real hardware.
Viam Education reflects Viam's broader belief in a software-first approach to robotics. The program will also include live events and hackathons where developers can build on the platform, experiment with hardware, and learn directly from Viam engineers and partners.
Upcoming events include:
Hello, Robot! 1-Day Hackathon with Viam and SPC
Robot Brunch Hackathon with UFactory & Viam
Newlab Chess Night
Developers can sign up for Viam 101 and learn more about upcoming Viam Education courses on topics such as software engineering for robotics, motion planning, computer vision, migrating from ROS, events, and office hours at viam.com/viam-101. Developers who register by July 31 will have a chance to win a UFactory Lite 6 robotic arm ($3,500 value).
About Viam
Viam is the software platform for building, deploying, and managing robotics applications. With Viam, engineers, startups, and large enterprises can develop for the physical world the way they develop anything else. Viam works with teams across manufacturing, marine, climate, logistics, entertainment, and more. Founded in 2020 by MongoDB co-founder and former CTO Eliot Horowitz, Viam has its headquarters and robotics lab in New York City. viam.com
— Originally published at roboticstomorrow.com
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